


the rest of the story

by bottledyarn



Series: the rest of the story [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fix It Fic, Fuck the CW, M/M, Minor Dean Winchester/Other(s), Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Modified Ending, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair, angst but not the same angst as the finale, buzz phrase of the day is 'prayer sexting', charlie is here I do what I want, the spanish dub both giveth and it taketh away, we out here, why did they do us like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottledyarn/pseuds/bottledyarn
Summary: “Hey, Cas,” he breathed finally, the words slipping out of him so easily it was like he’d never stopped praying. “Got your ears on?”--In which Dean says 'And I you, Cas' before the Empty takes him, and things fall apart differently than before.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: the rest of the story [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040470
Comments: 109
Kudos: 382





	1. Chapter One

The cold concrete floor was unforgiving. There was no yielding pressure there, no room to let his body sag or slump into resignation. The only option was despair. 

It was his fault. All that, about how Dean was never just a killer, that he had love to give and deserved love in return...and it was his love that did the killing. He couldn’t even--couldn’t even _speak_ without it turning deadly. They could’ve died together; faced Death and gone out with tear-damp faces and their hands...their hands clutched together. And instead, he had to open his mouth and summon the Empty where Cas’s confession failed to. _And I you._

All that--devastation, betrayal, murderous affection--and he hadn’t even been able to spit out the actual words. They were there, screamed into the abyss, the spaces in his mind he’d systematically carved away over the years. Echoing. But he hadn’t been able to say them. And yet. 

And the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. People were vanishing—not just Cas—but what was the point of caring? At best, Dean could offer a pitiful mimicry of grief if Sam was calling with bad news— _them, too?_ At worst, his love for everyone else in their life would poison them, too, and undo anything good Sam had been able to accomplish. Open, heartfelt Sam. Sam’s love wouldn’t send someone into the cold grip of death. 

How much time had passed before he managed to stand? The screaming pains in his hips and back—never letting him forget that he was no longer young—said that it had been hours. Had it? Or were the pains just his own body recognizing that he deserved pain and discomfort? Couldn’t even save the guy he loved? Couldn’t even—couldn’t even say the words that killed him anyway?

Dean’s boots were lead weights as he trudged out of the room. Through the bunker. Up the stairs. Out the door. His boot was heavy on the accelerator, too, taking him to the location texted by Sam amidst hours of other texts.

**Dean??  
Dean are you okay?  
We haven’t heard from you or Cas in a while  
Got everyone together, putting up warding now  
Hello??  
Dean for the love of god answer your phone  
Not for the love of god actually  
Dean listen to your voicemail  
They’re all gone  
Everyone’s gone  
Dean you’re freaking out me and Jack  
We’re headed back up the highway, if you get this meet us in that town with the shitty burger joint  
Otherwise we’re coming to you**

Dean sent just one word back: **coming.**

He couldn’t bear to—couldn’t write out anything else. Couldn’t explain. That wasn’t what he was good at, clearly. Saying what he needed to. 

It was clear once Dean got on the highway what Sam meant by _everyone’s gone._ He really meant everyone. Every last living soul had vanished. The highway was like a slalom course of weaving back and forth between abandoned cars in either lane. The radio stations crackled absently, nobody left to put on the next track or make commentary about...anything. But Dean didn’t put in a cassette.

It was almost like Dean left his body as they tried to figure out what the hell there was to do, once he found Sam and Jack. What was the point? What was the goddamn point, if everyone was gone? 

He remembered lying on the floor, the clinking of beer bottles like ghostly chimes around him as he stirred and dragged himself upright. Saying something to Sam. He didn’t know what. There was nothing important to say. 

And he remembered Cas’s voice on the phone; the clanging weight of the stairs beneath his feet as he ran—all as sharp as a knife in the gut, twisting and twisting and twisting into the open wound Dean couldn’t figure out how to close, the kind of wound he'd never learned how to suture.

There was...there was planning. Sam did most of it. Always was the brains of the operation. Dean was nearly mute, words echoing in his head. Things he said. Things he didn’t say. Things Cas said. After all this time… _all_ this time, and Cas knew how to love after all. The tin man really did have a heart in _that_ way. Beating, yearning, aching, the way Dean’s did. The way he tried not to let it. 

Fists landing on his skin, breaking the surface and swelling the already-tender tissue beneath...it was good. It felt like what he deserved, for being a coward, for being selfish, for being hopeful. The hope was the worst part—the insistent voice at the back of his mind saying, _God brought Lucifer out of the Empty. The Empty isn’t untouchable. The Empty is fallible._

Things he didn’t say out loud. If history was something to go off of, if he did that, it would all get snatched away. 

Then the fists stopped landing, and he was panting and Sam’s arm was tugging at him to stand upright. To face God, bloody and broken and let Him see that they were better than Him not despite their bruised and battered bodies but because of them. And that was…. Maybe a good thing. Maybe it was good that there was one being in the universe that Dean could spit down at and not just say but _know_ he was better than. Know he deserved more than. Someone he could look in the eyes and refuse their version of events. Their version of the truth. 

And there was something uncanny about having a new God. Dean was pretty sure that uncanny something was the fact that he knew Jack was about as qualified as a golden retriever to be God. Not that that was a bad thing—a golden retriever would make a much better God than Chuck. 

It wasn’t until they were climbing out of the Impala, to stare at the suddenly-repopulated town they’d stood lonely in only a day ago, that something unlatched in Dean and the weight of what they’d done swept out of his chest and dug into his fingertips. Sam wandered ahead, drifting into the crowd and laughing up at a woman changing the letters on a movie theater’s facade, dumbfounded at the life around him. 

“Hey, Jack,” Dean said. His tongue was woolly and cumbersome, like he hadn’t spoken in days. Jack turned, his eyebrows raised, face placid. That was the other uncanny part. Jack felt like a puppet now, even if Dean knew it was nothing but Jack’s own power and knowledge tugging him along. 

“Yes, Dean?” 

“I, uh.” Dean fiddled with the car keys and stuffed them into his pocket. “I should tell you what happened with Cas. You deserve to know that it was my fault.”

“Your fault?” Jack asked. He frowned. “Dean, I know everything now. I know what happened. That wasn’t your fault.”

“If I hadn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Jack said lightly. He stepped closer and patted Dean’s shoulder. The touch sent crawling, nauseous waves through Dean’s body, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. He'd never been a big fan of the idea of God in the first place, he figured. Even before he knew Him.

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, I already pulled Cas out of the Empty,” Jack said. 

Dean blinked. 

“He’s currently a...what was the phrase? A wavelength of celestial intent?” Jack said, squinting. 

“Wha—well, make him a—make him a…not...that,” Dean sputtered. “Make him here. He’s _alive_?”

“He’s an angel,” Jack said, tipping his head back and forth. “But basically.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dean asked, his voice coming out a little hysterical. Something was splintering apart in him, something heavy, and its shards were making his hands shake and his breath come out fast. This was real now. Cas was alive, and they—they’d said it, or Cas had and Dean had nearly said it, and they weren’t...they weren’t toeing around it like they had for...so long. So many years. How did you—how did you even deal with that? What did you say to someone you’ve loved like that for so long without saying it, once it’s all out there? Once you’ve spoken it into existence?

“Well, he seemed a little panicked about me being God; said he wanted to help and make sure I didn’t...what was the word he used? Implode?” 

“He…” Dean trailed off weakly. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

“He’ll be around,” Jack said. “Just be patient.”

“Hey, wait,” Dean said, reaching for Jack’s arm but pulling his hand away before he could touch. “You’re the new God...does that mean you’ll be...pulling the strings down here? Writing our story?”

Jack’s nose wrinkled. “Do you want that?”

“No,” Dean said immediately, the word falling from his lips with force. “I’d like it if...we were really normal. Even if that means more root canals. I’d like to know what that’s like.”

“That’s what you’ll have then,” Jack said. He drifted away, following the path Sam had taken through the crowd, and Dean swallowed around the cottony feeling in his mouth. A normal life. Even the bad parts. 

By the time they were back at the bunker, trying on the feeling of normal, Dean could feel the creeping feeling of something missing. Sure, there was a dog there now, and he could focus on hunts and cars and things that were simple, but...there was still a gaping space. 

“You talk to Eileen yet?” Dean asked, shuffling into the kitchen with morning-heavy limbs. 

Sam glanced up from his position at the stove and stifled a smile. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I think I’ll go and visit her for a while, maybe leave next week.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Dean murmured, stuffing a piece of toast into his mouth. 

“What about you?” Sam said. 

Dean choked, the dry edges of the crust catching in his throat. “What?” he said, reaching for a glass of water. “What do you mean, me?”

Sam paused, eyeing his brother with skepticism. “I mean, what’s your next move? All this freedom...what’ll it be?”

The image of wide blue eyes in his head was as good as a hand gripping at Dean’s throat. He stared down at the counter, waiting for the feeling to pass. 

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I can think of a few things, but...I gotta see what’s possible, I guess, right?”

“Right,” Sam said slowly. 

Sam’s visits with Eileen started going from a few days every few weeks to _weeks_ every few weeks. And Dean was just...waiting. Waiting for the ruffling sound of wings in the air, waiting for the croaking _Hello, Dean_ , waiting for a hand to press down on his shoulder as he spat toothpaste into the sink. Waiting for life to start. It wasn’t fair to rush it. Cas had shit to do. Jack would be struggling, and Cas was the one who could be there for him. Guide him. 

Then Sam visiting Eileen turned into Eileen visiting Sam. And then it was Sam standing shiftily in Dean’s bedroom doorway, asking in a painfully roundabout way if it would be alright for Eileen to live in the bunker, maybe go on a few hunts with them. To which Dean rolled his eyes. 

“Why’d you even ask?” he said. “Obviously yes. It’s not like it’s my bunker, it’s ours.”

Sam grinned, and then they were three. Often more than three, with hunters and friends pouring through the bunker on a constant stream. Charlie visited the most often, trying her best to defy the new normalcy clinging to all of them and keep them floating just out of sight of real-world consequences like charges of tax fraud and identity theft. 

“God, it’s like...was I ever even good at this?” she cried one night, staring at her computer. “It’s like trying to herd cats to get you two some working credit cards. Have you ever considered maybe getting a real job and starting from scratch? I think I could start you from scratch with new identities.” 

Sam perked up from where he was slouched on the couch, texting Eileen--she was just in their bedroom down the hall, but you’d think she was in Siberia for how pouty Sam was in her absence. 

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I was thinking that I could be a good antiquities dealer. Check if things are authentic, you know? I could get started with some of the stuff we’ve got in the bunker, and it wouldn't be a forty-hour a week thing, so I could still help with hunts and research and—”

“Alright, nerd,” Dean muttered. He took a swig of beer. Sam’s enthusiasm about their life as regular people was starting to grate on every one of Dean’s nerves. A few weeks without hearing from Cas was one thing, but it’d been what—six months? Seven? And nothing. Not even a visit to one of Dean’s dreams, and the dreams were overwhelmingly one-track-minded, so it wouldn’t even be like Cas would barge into a dream that wasn’t already about him. 

“What about you?” Charlie asked encouragingly. “You said you were looking into jobs as a mechanic?” 

“There’s nothing near this place,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I’m not leaving the bunker just to go be a grease monkey for some asshole in Junction City or something.”

Charlie chewed her lip, her brow furrowed as she looked closely at Dean. Too closely. Dean finished his beer and stood up abruptly, walking to get a replacement. 

“I’m going to bed,” Sam said. “I want to get an early start to—”

“Oh, can it,” Charlie laughed. “Go see your girl, it’s been like an hour, it must be so hard for you.”

Dean cracked open his next beer and pushed at the swelling feeling in his chest. Resentment? Or maybe just plain fear. Maybe Cas hadn’t meant what he said that way, but now that he was a full angel again he could feel the desperation rolling off Dean in waves and needed some space. Maybe—

“Dean,” Charlie said sternly. Dean blinked and realized Charlie had called his name a few times already. “Come here.”

Dean drifted obediently back over to the table and took the spot across from Charlie. 

“You gotta tell me what’s wrong,” Charlie said. “Aren’t you supposed to be relieved? Happy?”

“I am happy—”

Charlie made a loud buzzer noise. “Wrong,” she said. “You know that we all _know_ you, right?”

Dean picked at the label on the beer. 

“You know you can tell me,” Charlie said. She smiled innocently, tipping her head to the side. “What is it? Are you bored without a big quest to do? Did some girl turn you down at the bar last week? Oh, god, is Miracle sick? Did you—”

“It’s Cas,” Dean snapped. The bit of label he’d pulled off the beer bottle tore, and he flicked the soggy paper to the table, trying to get his heart to stop thundering in his ears.

“That he’s....dead?” Charlie said hesitantly. “We can figure out how to get him back, Sam was looking into the Empty more, and—”

“No,” Dean said. He glanced over his shoulder towards the hallway Sam had gone down. He needed to tell Sam not to bother, not to worry over that when it was already fixed.

“You don’t...want him back?” Charlie asked. “Did something happen? Or is this like a blaming-yourself-for-his-death situation and you think you deserve to live without your best friend, because it’s not just you that gets hurt by that, and—”

“He told me he loves me,” Dean said faintly. Charlie trailed off, and part of him thought, no way she heard that. It came out lighter than a breath, the first time he’d let himself say it. But she was staring at him with the wide, fallen face of someone who suddenly understood. 

Then a frown creased her forehead. 

“Loves you like...a brother?” she said. 

Dean shook his head. Her face went to that soft, pitying expression again, then it pinched to something tighter and angrier. 

“And...what, that made you so uncomfortable you want to no-homo him into staying in the Empty forever so you don’t have to see him again?” Charlie said incredulously. 

“What? No,” Dean said, almost knocking over his beer bottle as he reached for Charlie’s flailing hands. “No, I…”

He swallowed, his eyes caught by Charlie’s reluctant, anxious gaze now. 

“I told him...I told him I felt the same way,” he said. “And that was...that was what killed him.”

Charlie’s mouth was steadily widening, and she seemed about to say something. Dean shook his head.

“That’s not the point. I’m over it. Me killing my best friend because I...yeah. What else is new, right?” He took a swig of beer and wished it was something stronger. “He’s back. He’s alive, Jack brought him back. And he hasn’t even...he hasn’t even visited. Hasn’t even decided to drop by.” 

“He’s probably—”

“What if he didn’t even mean it?” Dean said. “What if he just meant...friendly love? And I freaked him out?” 

“Dean, I have seen the way he looks at you, not to mention _read_ about it in those stupid books, and there’s no way,” Charlie said bluntly. “There’s absolutely no way.”

Dean bit at the flesh inside his lip and shrugged. “Well, anyway, that’s what’s eating me. Cas is ignoring me.” 

Charlie sighed. They both stared silently down at the table for a moment before Charlie let out a laugh.

“What?” 

“Oh, it’s just...I really should’ve known,” she said. She reached out and patted Dean’s hand where it lay curled into a tense fist on the table. “You were a little too good at coaching me through flirting with that security guard. Oh, my god, and the way you talk about Harrison Ford! Man, I’ve really been slacking. I could’ve been your...your gay spiritual advisor.” 

“Yeah, I really am not looking for one of those,” Dean muttered.

Charlie hummed, smiling to herself and looking up toward the ceiling. Dean could _feel_ her mentally ticking off all the giant rainbow flags sticking out of Dean over the years. 

“Have you been praying to him?” Charlie asked suddenly. “In the books, you were always shooting off prayers to him and he’d show up in a heartbeat.”

“No, I...he’s busy, man,” Dean said. “If he wanted to talk to me, he’d be here.”

Charlie cried out, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “Hello, every rom-com plot ever,” she said. “He’s probably kicking rocks up by the pearly gates thinking that he messed things up with you and that _you_ meant platonic no-homo love and that if _you_ wanted to talk to _him_ then you’d be praying to him!” 

Dean spun the nearly-empty beer bottle back and forth between his two palms. It wasn’t…it wasn’t completely unbelievable. But…

“I can see it in your eyes,” Charlie said, leaning forward over the table to squint up at Dean. “Go pray. Never thought I’d say that phrase, but do it. Go pray to your gay angel lover. Never thought I’d say that either.” 

Dean sighed and drained the last of his beer, trying to pretend like he couldn't feel how his face got uncomfortably hot at Charlie's words. At least he had a good buzz going, if he was really going to...put it all out there, as it were. 

He scruffed the top of Charlie’s head—it was the closest he could get himself to a thank you—and went back to his bedroom. He sat on the end of his bed, tipping his head down, eyes squeezed shut. God, this was awkward. Maybe they were...better before. Pushing and pulling at this invisible something between them, but never making it real. Then again...

“Hey, Cas,” he breathed finally, the words slipping out of him so easily it was like he’d never stopped praying. “I hope you got your ears on."


	2. Chapter Two

Dean’s hands fisted in the sheets beside his legs. This shouldn’t be hard. He’d prayed to Cas a thousand times. More than that. 

“I, uh. Heard from Jack a while back that you’re out of the empty,” Dean said slowly. He kept his eyes closed, but couldn’t help but listen for any shift in the air, and slight rustle in the stillness of his bedroom. “I’ve been...waiting for you, I guess. I figure you’re pretty busy up there, uh. Helping Jack. I’ve been...hunting, sometimes. Trying out a new way to cook steak.”

Dean sighed, his eyelids fluttering open. He rolled his eyes skyward. A new way to cook steak. That’s what he decided to bring up?

“Anyway, uh. I just wanted to say I’m...well, we miss you, buddy,” he said. He shut his eyes again and pressed the heels of his hands against his knees. “I mean, I miss you. I wish you’d...be here. I mean. It’s not the same without you, alright? So just...get your ass down here. Please.”

He cracked one eye open and saw just the same quiet room, nobody but himself. 

He waited, sitting on the end of his bed and trying to remember to breathe. He toed off his boots, prodding them towards the corner but not getting up. He stood up hesitantly, peeling off his jacket before padding out to the hall to brush his teeth. He leaned down to spit only halfway, stooping awkwardly over the sink. Keeping his eyes on the mirror. 

He flipped back his sheets and slid into bed slowly, like maybe if he moved slow enough, he wouldn’t scare Cas away this time. And he stared at the dark ceiling, the minutes ticking away in the back of his mind even after he took his clock and put it out in the hall. And then he slept. 

Dean tended to only have dreams late in the night, in the early hours of the morning just before he started to get restless and sleep only fitfully in small, light bursts before throwing himself out of bed. Usually, once he managed to sleep, it was just darkness and incoherent thoughts—ideas he thought he would remember tomorrow even if he didn’t write them down (but never did remember). 

But the moment he slipped away and the endless, ricocheting thought of _what if he doesn’t even care what I have to say_ faded along with his consciousness, Dean was dreaming. The first thing he noticed was the warmth of sun on his skin; the second thing he noticed was the pale scent of pine trees and a recent rain. 

Then, in the dream, he opened his eyes. Light glimmered off tiny ripples in the water in front of him, shading against the impenetrable dark of the lake at his feet. His boots were laced perfectly, like someone had knelt down and done it for him without the brutality of his usual triple knots. His jeans were sun-soaked, heat lamps pressed up against his legs, and he had to squint against the brightness of the sun in the cloudless sky. He’d been here before. 

Above everything, above the stimuli the dream gently pushed at him, even more than the cool, heavy feeling of a fishing pole in his hands, he felt familiarity. He felt at ease. He took a deep breath—it was always easy to tell if a dream was a dream; breaths weren’t satisfying the way they ought to be. It was more like taking a sip of water when you weren’t even thirsty. 

Footsteps shuffled softly on the deck just behind him, and Dean turned his head only slightly. He didn’t feel quite like he could control his body here—inside, he was gasping, twisting around and lunging desperately. Running, the way he’d run for the door when Lucifer came calling as Cas. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the soft beige of the coat, the simple suit that had become so synonymous with Cas in his mind that sometimes when he was out on a hunt and saw a man with the right build in the right sort of suit, he almost had to sink to his knees just to stay upright at all. 

“Cas,” he said softly. His head turned slightly more; tipping up until he could see the angel’s face.

Cas smiled slightly. The sun wasn’t as bright as him; it sank into his skin and clung there like it didn’t know how to act around something like Cas.

“Dean,” Cas said finally, the smile twitching wider. “I heard your prayer.”

“Why didn’t you come?” Dean asked. Even though his dream-self spoke calmly, much calmer than the racing thoughts in Dean’s mind, he cringed at the wounded, open vulnerability that he could feel creeping out of him. 

“I can’t,” Cas said. “Not right now. Not for a while. Jack and I—we agreed that it would be for the best if no part of heaven could intervene on Earth anymore.”

“Not even me,” Cas said. “Especially not me, really. But it’s just a trial. After a bit of time, we’ll—”

The thin, gauzy layer holding Dean back from the dream split apart and he was really in his dream self, not swimming through his form like some indigent little creature. He was leaping to his feet, the fishing rod clattering as it hit the deck and rolled off into the lake. Cas frowned as it slipped away, but Dean didn’t turn to look. 

“A ‘bit of time’ Cas, really?” Dean said. “You—why would you say...why would you say what you did and then leave? Again? You could—we could have a real life. Here, on Earth. Like normal people. What is a bit of time? You can’t give me an actual—an actual idea of when you’ll be back? What does a 'bit of time' mean?” 

“I’m not ‘normal people,’” Cas said, raising his hands and finger quoting as he spoke. A pang of fondness swam through Dean. He was the same dorky angel he’d always been. "And time in heaven does not pass the same as on earth, I don't know..."

“But, Cas,” Dean said, his voice cracking. “What if a ‘bit of time’ turns into more? What if it’s...years? Decades? In a few decades, I’ll be—old. Maybe dead, it’s not like I eat rabbit food and run all the time like Sam.”

“We have all the time in the world,” Cas said. He took one step closer. “I promise.” 

“Cas—” 

The dream started shimmering and sliding into layers of blurring and dust, and Dean awoke, blinking into the darkness of his room. 

“What the fuck.” 

He didn’t sleep much the rest of the night. When he did, it was like his dreams were a cold set of sheets that someone kept tugging away in the night. There and then gone, waking him up with a feeling of loss he couldn’t quite pin down. 

“You look chipper,” Sam commented as Dean shuffled into the kitchen in the morning.

“Shut up,” Dean muttered back. _Good morning, Eileen,_ he signed, wearily smiling and taking his toast on the move. She nodded to him, but her gaze quickly flickered to Sam with a soft sort of ‘what’s up with him’ written all over her. 

Even Miracle nosed at him nervously, trying to prod some sort of comment out of him. 

“Found a hunt,” Sam said hesitantly, a few hours later. “It seems pretty weird.” 

He turned his laptop towards Dean. The words all blurred, but Dean nodded. 

“Sounds like our kind of thing,” he said. If Sam asked a single question about what Dean just looked at, he wouldn’t be able to answer. 

It was only as they were parking at the pie festival near the case that Dean squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, shaking off the not-dream from last night. Of course Cas was abandoning him and everyone else for the rest of forever. What else was new? Why wouldn’t he? It was what he always did, over and over and over. Leave. 

When Dean walked over to their picnic table with a tray of pie and set it down in front of Sam and Eileen, he couldn’t help but let out a slight sigh. Both of them looked borderline panicked, watching him with wide eyes like they expected him to combust.

“ _What?_ ” he snapped, pushing a piece of blueberry pie at Eileen. 

Neither of them answered, and Dean stabbed at an apple pie. 

“Seriously, are you two okay?” he said, stuffing his mouth with the pie. 

“I’m just...thinking about Cas,” Sam said hesitantly. “And Jack.” 

Eileen nodded. 

Dean frowned, glancing between the both of them. 

“Did Charlie say something to you?” he asked slowly. Eileen’s eyes darted to Sam, but Sam just frowned, his head tilting a little.

“What?” he said. “About what?” 

“Nothing,” Dean said. He took another bite, and the pie garbled his words as he spoke. “I’m worried about them, too. But I’m sure they want us to live our lives, you know. Hands off...regular life.” 

Sam almost looked like he might cry, and Dean huffed. He picked up one of the pies, not even looking to see what it was, and shoved it at Sam. Eileen stood up.

“I’m getting some cider,” she said, and walked away. A little suspiciously quickly for someone supposedly getting cider and not just trying to escape a conversation. 

“Cas should be a part of our lives,” Sam said. “Jack too, although now he’s got the whole....God thing.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Dean said. He blinked down at the empty plate in front of him. One gone already. “Besides, you have Eileen, don’t ya?” 

Sam squinted. “Well...yeah. I do. Exactly.” 

Dean raised his eyebrows. Sam held his gaze for a moment and finally sighed. He took a bite of his pie, shaking his head. Dean reached for the next piece of pie. Rhubarb.

Had Cas ever had rhubarb pie when he was human? Dean couldn’t remember ever giving him any, and it wasn’t likely he’d have gone off and found some pie on his own. 

**_I had rhubarb pie in Denver, Colorado._**

Dean flinched and the plastic fork he was gripping tight enough to snap went flying, landing in the dirt at Eileen’s feet as she returned with her cider. She looked from it to Dean expectantly, and he grimaced sheepishly. 

“Sorry,” he said.

Sam was looking at him extra strange now, and he took another bite of pie with a new fork from the tray. He was hallucinating again. Which was great. Maybe if he begged and pleaded, Cas could at least fix his brain this time so he didn’t go crazy with visions of Cas on the side of the road again. 

**_You are not hallucinating, Dean._**

The second fork went flying, and Dean cringed back at Sam and Eileen’s incredulous expressions.

“Seriously, dude,” Sam said. “What is wrong with you?” 

Dean grabbed yet another fork from the tray—the last of the ones the woman at the cash register had tossed onto it, assuming his quantity for pie was for quite a few people. 

“Nothing,” Dean said. “Stupid flimsy forks.” 

_Cas?_ He thought firmly, holding his fork more securely this time. _Is that you?_

**_After your prayer, I was worried I might miss some, since you have a tendency to...pray indirectly. I’m sorry if I listened to something I shouldn’t have._**

Dean stood up.

“I’m getting cider too,” he said, walking off before either of the two lovebirds could comment. 

“Cas,” he muttered, striding past the edges of the pie festival and pausing at the edge of an empty field. It was easier to—talk out loud. Made it feel a little less crazy, even if being a random man talking to himself at a pie festival looked crazier from the outside. “How are you in my head?” 

**_I thought it might be a good method of communication._**

Oh, God. If Cas had turned up the sensitivity of his prayer radio, if Dean ever—if Cas’s name ever came to mind at an inopportune moment, he would— 

A series of images of skin and taut longing flickered through Dean’s mind and he pressed his hands to his eyes.

“You didn’t see that, did you? Or hear that? How does this work, man?” Dean said. 

**_Hear what?_**

Cas’s voice was a little too innocent, and Dean took a deep, deep breath. 

“So you can’t come to Earth and...intervene in person, but this is fine?” Dean asked. “You want me to just go about my life for a few decades but I have you in my ear?” 

**_I can leave you be if you prefer._**

“No!” Dean exclaimed. Something clattered behind him and he turned to see a woman tossing a bag of trash in a dumpster staring at him in horror. 

“Phone call,” he mouthed, gesturing vaguely. She backed away, quickly returning to the festival proper. 

“Cas,” he said. “I—”

“Dean?” 

Dean turned to see Sam walking towards him, wearing his usual pinched confusion. 

“What are you doing over here?” Sam asked. 

“Looking for...cider,” Dean said. 

Sam’s eyes slid to the empty field in front of them and the dumpsters behind them. He nodded. 

“It’s over that way,” he said, pointing. 

“Yeah, I...I’m good,” Dean said. “Let’s go.” 

He walked back towards their picnic table, leaving Sam with his mouth hanging open like a guppy. 

He didn’t know what it was he needed to say to Cas anyway. Maybe, he thought, as they tossed their empty pie plates and his multiple forks in the trash...maybe there was nothing to say.


	3. Chapter Three

Dean...had a lot to say. He found himself whispering to Cas as they began the hunt proper—commenting on the degree of heart-eyes Sam was giving Eileen. Commenting on the stupidity of _vampire mimes_. On how good it felt to get to a house _before_ anyone had to die. 

And Cas kept replying. It was like he was right there, all the time. He even laughed at one point—like he was hovering over Dean’s shoulder, huffing a laugh at the same thing Dean was reading. 

“Can you believe he won’t let me use the throwing stars?” Dean muttered as he shut the impala’s trunk and trudged after Sam and Eileen towards the barn, nothing but a stupid machete in his hand.

**_I think they would be an ill-advised weapon._**

“You know, if you could come to Earth, you could wipe out a nest like this in ten seconds flat,” Dean said, a warm _something_ in his chest.

He caught up to Sam and Eileen where they waited at the door of the barn.

“Were you saying something?” Sam whispered. 

Dean shook his head. “What? No,” he said. 

Sam’s face went through the five stages of grief, and Dean bit his lip, fighting a smile. He probably oughtn’t to keep gaslighting Sammy and making him think he was either imagining things or make him think he was quickly losing his brother to complete insanity. 

They slipped into the barn, quickly finding the boys and shooing them outside. Eileen ran with them, pulling them out the door as figures quickly surrounded them. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dean muttered. “You’d think monsters woulda at least learned how to be intimidating by now.” 

There was a moment there—on his knees on the concrete, staring up at the woman he barely recognized from some past life—that he wondered if he and Sam were about to go out in the lamest way possible. Slaughtered by some overdramatic mimes. 

But they were on their feet again, fighting again—and Dean prodded at the strange feeling he’d gotten alongside the adrenaline surge as he’d stared up at certain death for the millionth time. The last vamp shoved and snarled at him as he tried to untangle the snarled burst of thoughts and emotions he’d felt. Fear—he wasn’t sure what it was that awaited him after death. Disappointment, maybe—he’d accepted the idea of normalcy, of living for a while and dying with years of plaque in his arteries. But also, something darker and meaner. Hope. Whatever came after life, it was somewhere away from Earth. Somewhere he could have what he’d always imagined alongside normalcy. 

This vamp weighed a _ton_. Dean was stumbling as he fought it, and he only barely registered the sound of the barn door opening again and Eileen’s feet hitting the floor to his right. Sometimes it felt like the only time he could get a clear head was when he was fighting something—that was always when he could suddenly think things through without getting caught up on stupid hang ups. 

He felt hands shove at him and the vamp, pushing him ever-so-slightly to his left as the vamp’s head went flying and he and the vamp slammed into a hard post. 

“Ow, Jesus—” 

Dean shoved the vamp away from himself and his hands flew to his side. There was pain, sharp, blindingly bright and unrelenting pain, and his hands came away silky with blood. 

“Are you okay?” Eileen asked urgently. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said. He clamped one hand to the side of his ribs, feeling at a deep gash along his skin, skimming alongside his ribs. “That fucking—ow. That shit jabbed me.” 

“Dean!” Sam exclaimed, rushing up. “You good?” 

“Yeah, I—your girl pushed me out of the way of becoming a shish kebab,” Dean said, grinning at Eileen. “Hurts like a bitch.” 

“You’re welcome,” Eileen said dryly. She lifted Dean’s arm, peering at the wound in his side. 

“It’s not bad,” Sam said, looking from beside her. He stared at the jagged post sticking out of the wall. “Could’ve been.” 

“Let’s go,” Dean said. “This barn gives me the heebie-jeebies.” 

He sat in the backseat of the impala, his side too sore to lift his right arm all the way, and held gauze to the wound. Normalcy. Another taste. It wasn’t too bad. 

Sam and Eileen were signing to each other in the front seats, but Dean couldn’t quite see enough to make anything out. He sank back, focusing instead on the stars in the clear night sky. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you or God was pulling strings in there to keep me and Sam afloat,” Dean whispered, quiet enough for his voice to slip away under the music playing on the radio. It was terrible music, but he was letting it slide for once. 

**_It’s just you, Dean. You’re good at what you do._**

“It wasn’t me,” Dean said. “It was Eileen, and Sam, and some luck.” 

There was a long pause before Cas spoke again, and Dean’s eyes were getting heavy. 

**_Please be careful._ **

Dean slept better than he had the night before. But no dreams—or, at least, no not-dreams like he would like. 

“You know, Cas,” Dean said as he halfheartedly made his bed. Miracle would muss up the covers anyway. “Just because you’re on prayer speed-dial now doesn’t mean you can’t drop by a dream or two once in a while.” 

Cas didn’t say anything in response, but Dean smiled down at his socked feet. He was being wildly transparent, for him. Even Cas would know as much—Dean didn’t make a comment like that and not mean it ten times over. 

Sam and Eileen were already sitting at the table when Dean headed over with a small breakfast. Eileen smiled as he approached, but pressed a hand to Sam’s arm and left as soon as Dean settled into his chair. 

“What’s that about?” Dean asked. He bit into a breakfast sausage, eying Sam warily. 

“Listen,” Sam said. “There’s been...less hunts lately, right?” 

Dean raised an eyebrow. “I guess,” he said. “It’s been a little slow.” 

“And...there are maybe more hunters than there are hunts, now,” Sam said slowly. 

Dean nodded. “That’s...true.” 

Sam looked like he might vibrate out of his seat. 

“Did you swallow a nuclear device this morning, Sammy?” Dean asked, grinning. 

Sam glanced over his shoulder and reached into his pocket for something, setting it on the table with his hand over it. 

“I think I want to...quit while I’m ahead. No more close calls,” Sam said. “We don’t have God backing us up anymore, or any special help, you know? I can help from here, make calls, do research, find cases for hunters, that kind of thing.” 

“You’re retiring?” Dean asked. 

Sam looked nervous. Like Dean might storm off. But there was something bright and shimmery where Dean might’ve expected to find betrayal. Where Sam clearly expected there to be anger. 

“Kind of,” Sam said. 

Dean smiled, and watched as Sam melted with relief, tension flooding out of him. 

“I was thinking of...things I want to do, that I don’t want to miss out on because of a stupid hunt,” Sam said. “Big things.”

Before Dean could ask what the hell he was talking about, Sam turned his hand over. In the palm of his hand was a small box, encased in velvety-soft black fabric. 

“Holy shit, Sammy,” Dean said, staring at the box. “You’re serious.” 

“Yeah, I am,” Sam said. He shoved the box away, back into his pocket, beaming. “You think...you think I can pull it off?” 

Dean’s brow flickered with a frown as he read the hope and nervousness in his little brother’s eyes. It was like Sam was just waiting for an explosion. Or waiting for Dean to tell him that their work wasn’t done, that Sam couldn’t just quit. 

“I’m best man, right?” Dean asked. 

Cas already knew the news by the time Dean was back in his room and whispering about it. Dean wasn’t sure if he’d accidentally prayed during the first breath of _holy shit_ he’d felt when he saw the ring box, or if Sam had prayed to Cas even though he didn’t know Cas was out of the empty. 

So he didn’t get to break the news to Cas. Big whoop. He’d have the pleasure of grinning wildly at Sam’s bitch face when Dean managed to blurt out the news to Garth, Jody, Donna, _and_ Charlie, all on separate occasions, before Sam could spit it out. Engaged. Every time Dean thought about it, or saw the ring on Eileen’s finger, or the barely-contained glee just under Sam’s every expression, it felt like he was getting injected with a touch more helium and drifting a little bit lighter on the ground. 

And Dean—he kept meaning to talk to Cas. To _really_ talk to Cas, not just tell him everything he does all day and listen as Cas does the same; not just tell him about a terrible movie Sam made him watch or listen as Cas explained fondly some strange thing Jack said (which usually was something either quite ordinary that Cas was actually the odd one out on, or something so unfathomably bizarre and uncomfortable that Dean had to threaten to put Cas on mute even if he could do no such thing). 

But really talk. Ask him how he was supposed to keep going and pretending like he could make a life on Earth when the life he wanted was—elsewhere. Increasingly, he didn’t want to explain it to Sam. Didn’t want him to think that the longing Dean was always batting away was something to do with not wanting to live. It was hard to wrap his own mind around—the idea that when he finally was getting the kind of life he’d always wanted, completely ordinary and simple, he couldn’t help but want out because it wasn’t quite everything he wanted. And he wanted to tell Cas the same, but...

He knew how that conversation would go, though. It would go like every conversation of that ilk had gone with Cas—it would come across as an accusation, like Dean didn’t understand why Cas couldn’t be on Earth; that he had things he needed to handle elsewhere and that the time it would take would pass much faster on Earth...He did understand. He just didn’t like it. 

“I look ridiculous,” Dean said. He was standing in front of a mirror, tugging at the cuffs of an overly-fancy suit. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a wedding. Had he ever been? 

**_You look handsome._**

Dean flushed red; pulling his eyes from the mirror as his face flooded with heat. 

“You should be here,” he said. “Jack, too. I’m sure Sam would’ve made him ring bearer.” 

**_Dean..._**

“I know,” Dean said. It didn’t matter that it had been...a year? A year and a few months, maybe? Since he’d finally prayed to Cas, finally gotten at least to talk to Cas and see him in his dreams. Sometimes he’d still hear Cas make a comment and turn towards where his mind tried to pretend he was standing, or he’d hold out a piece of food for Cas to try and realize only when his hand hovered awkwardly in space that there was no one there to take it. 

“Cas,” Dean said. He loosened his tie slightly, finding it hard to get a full breath of air. “Someday…”

Dean trailed off. Sometimes, in his dreams, he and Cas would just sit side by side, staring out at an image of the world. Other times, they would talk about nothing for what felt like hours, just like they did every day but face to face. The feeling of the dream always clung there, though, and dream-Dean felt syrupy and distant; dream-Cas felt like a mirage that flickered away if Dean tried to get too close. It wasn’t the same as really being together. Sometimes, Dean was afraid that if they found each other on another plane of existence, it still wouldn’t feel real. And Dean couldn’t help but picture himself old and contorted by age, facing an unchanged Castiel, a shining angel of the lord made only more brilliant by time, if he survived long enough for Cas to come to Earth. That was stupid. Dean knew it was. He'd rolled his eyes at the idea of fearing being too old for your immortal...love, when watching one of those godforsaken Twilight movies. But his hips already hurt in the mornings; sometimes he couldn't get a kink out of his neck for entire days on end. By the time Cas came to Earth, things wouldn't be the same. But Cas would be. Nevertheless...

**_Someday._**

As Cas spoke in Dean’s mind, the image and feeling and smell and sound of every time they’d lost each other and found each other again rushed through Dean, carried like dust motes in the sunbeam that was Cas, and Dean sank to his knees at the feeling. Someday. 

“Dean?” The bathroom door creaked open. “What are you doing on the floor?” 

“Hmm?” Dean said, lifting his head. Garth stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips, and Dean grinned. “Nothing. Thought I dropped something.” 

“You’re holding everyone up,” Garth said. “It’s time.” 

The wedding was the only thing it could be: sappy as hell. And Dean stood there and watched and tried not to let that bitter little part of him surge up in his chest and sour any of it. 

“They’re really happy,” Dean said offhandedly, later, as he sat in the grass with Charlie and watched Sam and Eileen dance in the quiet evening moonlight. Everyone had trooped off to sleep, either in hotels or back home or in a spare room of the bunker. 

“I think so,” Charlie said fondly. 

“You’re happy?” Dean said. It was mostly a rhetorical question. Lately, you couldn’t pay Charlie to shut up about her girlfriend. 

Charlie just hummed in agreement. 

“You’ll find someone, you know,” Charlie said.

Dean pursed his lips, watching his brother gently spin his new wife. 

“I already have,” he said, tipping his head towards Charlie. “I just have to...wait.”

“Cas wouldn’t judge you if you found love here,” Charlie said. “If you didn’t spend your life waiting. He’d probably be happy.”

“Who else is there?” Dean said feebly. He pushed himself to his feet and offered Charlie his hand. “Care for a dance?” 

They took a turn about the impromptu dance floor, Charlie laughing when Dean dipped or spun her with a bit too much vigor. And if Dean imagined a rougher, larger hand in his as they shifted to the rhythmic buzz of the cicadas and the hum of the crickets...he figured Charlie would understand.


	4. Chapter Four

It wasn’t long before there was another Winchester in the world—a year and a half, to be precise. Dean spent most of Eileen’s pregnancy in a state of panic, realizing that he knew absolutely nothing about pregnancy or how to prevent things from going wrong. 

“If something goes wrong, you’ll fix it, right?” he said the night of the birth. He’d said the same thing a million times, every time Eileen so much as sighed. And every time, Cas said the same thing. 

**_Everything will be fine._**

As if that helped. But somehow, the horrors of childbirth—and Dean did not use that word lightly—almost managed to distract from the fact that there were very real, very normal risks associated. Sam seemed almost calm by comparison. 

“No, that’s normal, too,” he must’ve said a hundred times in the months leading up to the birth, and a hundred times in the hospital that night. 

Dean was starting to feel like a broken record. 

But then he was holding the baby, the tiny, fragile baby, and he realized he didn’t even know what panic was. The baby would be moving soon and walking and thinking and going out in the world to get hurt. 

When Dean finally surrendered her back to her parents, his hands were shaking and he went out into the hall. 

“Can you at least put a blessing on her or something?” Dean asked frantically, earning him a sidelong glance from a nurse. 

**_She’ll be fine._**

“If you say that one more time, I swear I’ll come up there and—”

**_Dean._**

He took a deep breath and walked back past Eileen’s room, peeking in quickly to see that the couple was peering down together at the baby that slept in her arms. The fire under his heels snuffed out and he found himself standing there, staring, feeling heavy and lost. 

“Has that work you’re doing up there gotten any closer to...being done?” Dean asked. 

**_There is still much to be done. Very little time has passed._**

“It’s been years, Cas,” Dean said softly. 

Sam looked up from his baby, his eyes bright, and frowned only momentarily at Dean before his attention snapped back to the baby. 

**_You still have not told your brother anything._**

It wasn’t a question, and guilt lanced through Dean’s gut. 

“No,” he said. “I guess I...should. I don’t want him to worry.”

**_He will worry regardless._**

Dean stepped back inside the room, walking up to Sam to pat his shoulder and grin. 

Things were different, for Sam and Eileen. For the bunker. Dean wondered if it had ever housed an infant before. More than that, he wondered how long this would last. At what point did raising a child in a bunker go from ‘safe and affordable housing’ to ‘child endangerment and isolation?’ 

It turned out the answer was age two. 

Sam’s little antiquities dealer plan had turned into a real job with a real fake identity, and Eileen, being a stable and much more normal person than Dean or Sam, found a real job that was even more normal. And they found a house that was the normalest thing of all. A ranch with a, no joke, white picket fence. And it was only a thirty minute drive, for all that Dean complained about the distance. 

“It’s kind of lonely here by yourself,” Dean said, shutting the bunker door as the latest passersby-hunters filed out. 

**_You aren’t alone too much, are you?_**

“I have you,” Dean said honestly, cracking open a beer. “And everyone’s always coming through. It’s fine.”

**_But you’re lonely._**

Dean gritted his teeth. Of course he was lonely. Of course he was lonely! How could he not be? He wanted to just scream at Cas sometimes. Everyone was doing good at this whole normalcy thing. Charlie was engaged, for god’s sake. And Dean was just—wandering around talking to a voice in his head like that was a good way to spend your life. And the worst part was, he didn’t mind that part. That was the part of his life that _was_ good. Maybe that was why he couldn’t bear to tell Sam—it would make it too easy for Sam to realize that Dean had nothing except for that one good thing. And it made him guilty to even think that it was the only good part. It wasn’t. He had Sam, he had Eileen, his niece, Charlie, so many people he loved. But the almost-having was like a bruise he couldn’t stop poking, and it was so much _more_ than he was used to having, or expecting. 

His dreams were empty that night. Maybe some of his thoughts had leaked through to Cas, some of what he couldn’t help but cry out within the confines of his own mind. Maybe Cas thought he needed space, when he needed anything but that. He needed something real, something tangible, something to hold and to live for. 

He woke up to banging. It was erratic—a few heavy, metallic thuds, then silence. Then, a minute later, they’d start up again. He slid the gun out of his bedside drawer—he’d graduated from sleeping with it under his pillow sometime last December—and stuffed his feet into his slippers. Spook in the bunker or not, his feet deserved to be warm. 

He crept out into the hallway and listened for the banging to return. It was coming from the main entrance, echoing down into the bunker. He climbed the stairs slowly. Last time...last time he had an unexpected visitor at this door, it hadn’t ended well. 

Dean took a breath and opened the door nonetheless, gun raised, lungs tight with air, body braced for an attack or for disappointment. 

“Oh,” he said, the gun sinking down. He stared mutely. He’d really lost it now. 

“Hey there, Dean,” Benny said, his voice just as low and lilting as Dean remembered. “Gonna let me in?” 

“Uh,” Dean said. Every coherent thought he’d ever managed to conjure had vanished from his mind, leaving just vague tendrils of… _Benny?_

“I’m real,” Benny said, raising his arms in a shrug. “Far as I could tell. And, uh. Human, far as I can tell. Woke up next to the Impala.”

“I went to purgatory,” Dean said slowly. “You were dead.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Benny said. “I’m no good at staying dead.”

Dean blinked. Looked down at his gun, hanging limply in his hand. What was the worst that could happen? Well. Could be a shapeshifter. 

“Tell me something only the real Benny would know,” Dean said. 

Benny nodded slowly, and he looked down at the ground for a moment, thinking. 

“When we were in purgatory,” he said, “you prayed to that angel of yours every night. I heard you, even though you tried to go out of earshot. One of the nights you prayed to him, you told him you’d kill yourself before leaving that place without him, and we found him the next day. I remember thinking you were either the luckiest son of a bitch I ever met or else someone really was listening.”

A breath released heavily from Dean’s lungs, and he stepped forward, bringing Benny to him in a tight hug. 

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “How the hell are you alive?” 

“Divine intervention, I guess,” Benny said, gripping Dean in return tightly for a moment before stepping back with a sigh.

“No such thing anymore,” Dean said. He waved Benny into the bunker and watched as the man walked down the stairs. What in the hell. Or what in the purgatory, he thought, smirking at himself.

“That doesn’t seem like the cheerful, optimistic Dean Winchester I remember,” Benny said. He stood still at the bottom of the stairs, staring around at the bunker. “Where’d you find this place?” 

“Around,” Dean said. He trooped down the stairs and gestured for Benny to follow him to the kitchen. “You drink beer now that you’re a real boy?” 

“Sure thing,” Benny said. 

Dean sat down across from Benny, his pulse racing. This was real. Something good for a change—a win. A pretty big one, really. 

“Tell me what you’ve been up to,” Benny drawled, holding out his beer to clink against Dean’s. “I’m sure it’s something good.”

“We killed God,” Dean said, smiling down at his beer. It felt ridiculous to say out loud. 

“So you weren’t kidding about the whole no divine intervention thing,” Benny said. 

Dean shrugged. “There’s a new god now,” he said. “But yeah. No dice on that front.”

Benny nodded. “And yet here I am.”

“And yet here you are,” Dean said faintly, raising his beer slightly again. 

Something was off. 

“Anyway,” Dean said. “You’re probably tired from the whole...being dead thing. There’s plenty of rooms.”

“Aw, you don’t have to let me stay—”

“No, no,” Dean said, standing up. “Seriously. It’s just me most of the time.”

Benny followed after Dean as he headed down the hall to one of the spare bedrooms. 

“Here’s one,” Dean said. “Seriously, man. Stay as long as you want.” 

Benny stood there for a second, considering Dean with a long gaze. Finally he nodded and slipped into the room, looking around at it for a moment before sinking to the bed. 

“If you need anything, there’s a supply room right over there,” Dean said. 

He tapped at the door frame as he walked away, uneasiness swirling in his throat. 

“Cas,” he said as he shut the door to his bedroom behind him. “If you and Jack are hands-off, wanna tell me how Benny is back from the dead?” 

Dean waited expectantly for a minute before sighing and trying again. “Cas, seriously. I know someone intervened here; Benny was dead-dead. Beyond purgatory dead. Out of existence dead.”

**_Jack reversed a few...unjust deaths. Benny was among them._**

“And he just happened to rematerialize on my front porch?” 

Cas didn’t reply again, and Dean rolled his eyes. “Cas.”

**_Yes._**

“Yes, he happened to rematerialize within spitting distance of the bunker?” Dean said.

**_Jack...put people back where they would be happiest._**

“Uh huh.” 

**_He’s your friend._**

“Cas, if people can be put back on earth, can’t you—”

**_Dean._**

Dean sighed, but let it rest. Fine. Fine. If Cas wanted to be stubborn about this of all things, then fine. Of course he would be unyielding and resistant when it came to leaving, when it came to not being here. 

“Okay, Cas,” Dean sighed. “Fine.”

If Cas, or Jack, wanted Dean to have a friend around, then so be it. By the time Dean woke up, he knew what it was he wanted. Purgatory had been strangely good, strangely pure, and if there was one thing he knew, it was that he and Benny had been a goddamn dream team of monster slaughtering. 

“Morning,” Dean said, nudging Benny with his shoulder where the man stood staring into the fridge. “You remembering how to be human?”

“It comes and goes,” Benny said. He withdrew a bag of bread from the fridge finally, staring down at it like it was a horrific beast. “I remember what humans do, at least.”

“So, Benny,” Dean said as he made toast for the both of them. “I was thinking.”

“Hope you didn’t hurt yourself,” Benny said. Dean chuckled. 

“I was thinking, we were a pretty good team once upon a time,” he said. “Would you want to come on some hunts? There are still some, every once in a while.”

Benny raised his eyebrows. “I don’t have any extra speed or strength anymore,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m just a pretty average human now, darlin’.”

Dean dropped his eyes to the toaster as he felt his cheeks heat. “I’m sure you can handle yourself,” he said. “It’s not like we’ll be killing God or anything. Maybe a ghost, or a chupacabra.”

“If that’s what you wanna do,” Benny said. “I’ve got no objections.”

Dean smiled. Benny almost looked...nervous, looking up at Dean’s slightly-manic grin. He didn’t know what he was in for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was supposed to be one chapter originally, then three. But here we are! Existing post-finale is a hell of a drug. 
> 
> And Benny's here! Who knew he'd be here!? Not me!


	5. Chapter Five

It didn’t occur to Dean prior to the hunt to specifically mention it was vampires they were going after. It was...what, their tenth hunt since Benny had come back to Earth? Eleventh? And when the information came through, he didn’t think to get specific about what they were doing. He just relayed the facts—and maybe Benny immediately realized it was vampires; maybe he didn’t. But then they were face-to-face with the monsters, the worst sort of vampires, the kind that had a special preference for kids’ blood. And it wasn’t until they were both splattered with vampire blood; droplets clinging to their hair and eyelashes and every edge and button of their clothing, that Dean’s mind started to race. 

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, grabbing Benny’s shoulder when the last vampire head rolled. “I should’ve mentioned it was vamps, I don’t know if…”

“What, if any of them could be my long-lost cousin?” Benny asked dryly. “Naw, I’m good.”

Dean sighed in relief and prodded one of the heads with his toe. It slid away a little too easily, the ground beneath it soaked in blood. 

“We’re a good team, man,” Dean said the next morning as they climbed into the impala, cleaned off after showers at their motel and in blissfully un-bloodstained clothing. 

“Think so?” Benny said, lounged in the passenger seat comfortably, watching Dean as they got on the highway back towards the bunker. 

“The week before you showed up I went on a hunt with this guy Paul,” Dean said. “He was a nightmare. I thought he was going to get us both killed before we even found the damn thing we were hunting.”

Lights at the side of the highway flashed by in rhythmic pulses of yellow as the hours of the drive wore on and it went from day to afternoon to night, and Dean tapped the steering wheel to the beat of the song playing low. Last week, Charlie had called to catch up and she’d made a comment as they said their goodbyes that Dean sounded different—lighter, happier maybe. Dean couldn’t disagree—it was nice having Miracle around at least, although the dog was getting old, but it wasn’t the same as actually having someone else living in the bunker all the time, always ready to go on a hunt or just sit and have a beer. It was better than just having folks come passing through for a day or a week and then leave again. Everyone always left. 

And Benny was quiet most of the time. Not overwhelming. Easy company. Sam had shifted awkwardly the first time he swung by the bunker and Dean had to tell him that Benny was back from the dead and human this time. Old tensions died hard, Dean figured. Even if Benny and Sam had mostly worked past the stiffness in the end, it wasn’t like running into an old friend with the two of them. But it didn’t matter, it wasn’t like Sam was living in the bunker anymore, and from the way he gave Dean an overly-serious half-smile as he left the bunker that day, Dean could tell his brother was relieved someone was around full-time. 

“You tired?” Dean asked as they strolled into the bunker, dropping their bags by the door to deal with later.

“Nah,” Benny said, and headed straight to grab beers before Dean could say anything.

After they’d been sitting on the couch for a while, some TV show murmuring quietly in the background, Benny turned and considered Dean with a steady, appraising look.

“What is it?” Dean said. “Got blood on my face?”

“Is this what you want to do your whole life?” Benny asked. “Wait around here for the next hunt, spend a couple days killin’ things, then do it all over again?”

Dean froze, his beer—what number was this, anyway?—halfway to his lips. This was a road he didn’t often go down in his mind. It led to things that he knew he shouldn’t think about too much. Things that would inadvertently turn to prayers.

“I don’t know,” Dean said, lowering his beer. “I guess I figure if I can save people, I’ve kinda got an obligation to do it, don’t I?”

Benny shrugged. “You’ve saved a lot of people already,” he said. “I’ve seen more hunters come through this place in a month than I’ve seen my whole life. You ever think about hanging it up, letting some of the younger ones do it?”

“You don’t want to keep hunting?” Dean asked, his voice a little too high and tense. “Is that it?”

Benny shook his head slow. “You’re roundin’ on fifty,” he said. “Could be a good time to do other things.”

“What else am I good for?” Dean said, the words spilling out too fast to stop. 

“Dean,” Benny said. Something in Dean’s throat caught at the way he said it. Serious, low, fond. 

Dean just hummed reluctantly for him to go on, staring fixedly at the TV screen even though he couldn’t for the life of him say what was on. 

“You know you’re a good man,” Benny said. Dean took a shaky breath and set down his beer. Why did everyone seem to think that he needed a pep talk? He could count on one hand the number of people he knew well that _hadn’t_ decided to try and talk him up at some point. 

Benny was saying other things, other words, and Dean couldn’t listen. He didn’t want to, or maybe didn’t need to hear it. He slumped back into the couch, letting his head loll against the back of the couch as he watched Benny talk. He felt a little warmer and looser than the number of beers he was pretty sure he’d had warranted. He didn’t drink the way he used to; maybe he was turning into a lightweight. He kept watching Benny; watched him trail off. He frowned at Dean, like Dean had done something wrong. 

“What?” Dean said.

Benny reached towards him, and Dean stayed where he was sprawled, boneless and placid against the couch cushions. His hand was huge and as it pressed to Dean’s cheek, Dean realized he felt almost _small_ , the way Benny was leaning over him. 

“Benny…”

Dean realized their faces were closer together than...than he really got with anyone. This was like, borderline _Cas_ close. But it wasn’t Cas. This would never be Cas; would never be anything like…

_**Dean, you deserve to be happy.**_

Dean flinched and his heart thudded loud in his ears. 

“I can’t do this,” Dean said urgently, tension suddenly gripping at him, pulling him away. He stood up, pressing his hands to his face. 

He wasn’t sure if Benny said anything as he left, but his ears were ringing. He shut himself in his room, his hands shaking.

“Cas,” he said. “What the fuck is going on.”

There was no reply, no humming, low answer in the back of Dean’s mind, and Dean resisted the urge to grab something and break it, destroy something, shatter something into a million pieces.

“Cas, I know you like to not tell me fucking anything, but you need to tell me the truth. Did you bring Benny back to try and...replace you? Try and shuffle me off onto someone else? Try and… _distract_ me? Make me forget you left?”

_**Dean…**_

“No. You know what? No,” Dean said, his voice raising, his throat scratching. “That’s bullshit, Cas.”

Cas didn’t reply, but there were three soft knocks at Dean’s door, and he threw it open. 

“ _What_?” he snapped.

Benny raised his eyebrows. “You talkin’ to your angel?” he asked. 

Dean blinked, struck mute. “What?”

“Praying?” Benny said slowly. “I’m sorry, Dean. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Wha—” Dean shook his head. 

“You—”

“No,” Dean said firmly, grabbing his jacket. “No. I’m good. I don’t need—whatever it is you think I do.”

Dean pushed past him and headed straight for the door, grabbing his keys and bursting out into the crisp, cold night air. 

_**Dean, you should go back.**_

“What, are you just watching me now?” Dean spat. “I thought you were so busy up there, babysitting God?”

He opened the impala door and slammed himself inside the car, taking a deep breath to try and push away the tense, furious heat that was coursing through him.

“And just—just so you know, _Cas_? If you cared so much about my fucking—happiness, or whatever? You’d be here.”

_**Dean, I—**_

“No,” Dean said, turning the car on. “I don’t want to hear from you. Get the fuck out of my head.”

The moment Cas listened, Dean realized that there was something more than just the occasional comment from Cas in his head. There had been a constant hum, a fullness inside him that he hadn’t noticed until it vanished, like a forgotten stereo on in the other room playing quiet, melodic nothingness had finally been switched off. 

Nothing filled that silence. Not the music he cranked loud in the car, not the roar of the engine, not the dull, muddled cacophony of the bar he ended up in. Someone kept playing Elton John on the jukebox, and if he heard _The Bitch is Back_ one more goddamn time he’d throw his drink, glass and all, across the bar at the hipster-looking college kid hovering possessively over the jukebox. 

Dean finished his drink, his third whiskey in as many minutes, and motioned for another, taking a deep breath that burned at his lungs like the whiskey itself. 

Someone brushed up against him and he turned his head just enough to see them. The woman’s curling brown hair was long enough to trail against the bartop and flirt at the bare skin at his elbow. There was a big gap beside him—three barstools unoccupied. Plenty of room to not come anywhere near him to get to the bar. 

“Can I get a Sam Adams, please?” the woman said as the bartender drifted over to slide Dean another drink. 

Dean bit at the inside of his cheek and lifted his glass, taking a long sip. 

“You come here often?” he said, tilting his head towards the woman. She leaned her arms on the counter and smiled at him.

“Does that line ever work?” she asked, grinning and twisting a finger through the ends of her hair. 

Dean shrugged. “Sometimes.” 

The bartender set down her beer with a nod, and the woman took a sip, her eyes lingering on Dean’s. 

This was—this was the kind of initial meeting that would usually leave Dean smirking, _knowing_ that he just had to do the bare minimum and he’d have someone in his bed that night. But the woman kept talking—she was an EMT, apparently—and he kept drinking, and smiling, and he was increasingly feeling like he might vomit. 

“Closing time,” the bartender said, rapping at the counter in front of them. Dean glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the bar—almost everyone was cleared out. 

The bartender drifted away, throwing his towel over his shoulder as he walked away. The woman—Helen—was smiling a little different now, almost shy. 

“You wanna get out of here?” she said, her eyes glittering mischievously. 

Dean’s heart thudded off-center in his chest and his eyes dropped to the bartop. 

“I, uh…”

Helen shifted slightly, repositioning on her barstool, her fingers adjusting where she clutched her shoulder bag. 

Dean forced his eyes up, and watched as something clicked in Helen’s eyes. 

“You’re married,” she said confidently, her mouth quirking to the side. 

Dean huffed a laugh and tapped absently at the bartop. “No,” he said. “No. I wish.” 

Helen frowned, but stood up, sliding off her barstool. 

“In another life, I think we would’ve gotten along, Dean,” she said, not unkindly. She patted his shoulder, like she thought he was a sad kid in need of comforting, and walked away, shrugging her jacket on as she went. 

“Strike out?” the bartender asked. He plucked Dean’s empty glass away and paused there, his heavy black eyebrows raised. 

“Something like that,” Dean said tiredly. He wasn’t sure how much he’d drunk, but it was enough that he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to gracefully get from this barstool to the backseat of the impala. 

“You’re not driving home, are you?” the bartender asked. 

Dean shook his head. “I don’t even know what town we’re in.”

“Harrond,” the bartender said. He grinned, his cheek dimpling under his scruff. “Want me to call you a cab?” 

“Just gonna sleep in my car,” Dean muttered, standing up and putting on his jacket. “Nothing new.”

“Kinda sad, man,” the bartender said. He drifted towards the door as Dean did. 

Dean paused and sighed, leaning against the door. “What else is new?” 

He pushed out into the cool night air and glanced back to see the bartender locking the door behind him and tugging the neon _open_ sign to dark. Dean gave him a nod and made a beeline for the car. 

Dean woke up, back screaming with stiffness, to the gray light of early morning. His mouth was chalky and dry, and he tried to conjure some spit to swallow. 

“Jesus,” he muttered, sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes. Helen’s face flickered through his mind’s eye. She really was beautiful. But her eyes—blue, and dark blue at that—he couldn’t look at her and not...not…

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen with bleary eyes. Charlie. Charlie? He swiped to answer the call and thumbed the speakerphone button as he sunk back down to fully horizontal. Or mostly horizontal, since his legs were in an awkward tangled half-off the seat sort of situation.

“Hello?” he said, his voice croaky and horrible.

“ _Dean_ ,” Charlie said, sounding relieved. 

“Uh, yeah,” Dean said. “You called me, remember?” 

“I was worried about you,” Charlie said. “Benny said you—”

“Oh, for—” Dean sighed, shutting his eyes for a second. “I’m fine.”

“That’s not what Benny said.”

“Charlie, I’m fine. I needed some air.”

There was a long pause, the line crackling softly at the empty air. 

“Did something happen?” Charlie asked finally. 

“No. No,” Dean said. “I just haven’t left that place in a while to do anything but hunt or visit Sam.”

Charlie hummed. 

“Alright,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “I can feel your judgment.” 

“Dean, you’re in Harrond, Nebraska,” Charlie said. “Did you even know you crossed state lines?” 

Dean pursed his lips. No, he did not. 

“How did you know where I am?”

“How do you think, smartass?” Charlie said. “If you go anywhere stupid, I’ll track you there, too. I see you’ve been getting your beauty sleep in the parking lot of an establishment called Porky’s.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean huffed, pushing himself vertical again. “I’m getting a motel, if that’s what you’re so worried about.”

“Just don’t do anything stupid in an effort to not feel something,” Charlie said. 

Dean stared at the phone and shook his head. 

“You’re not a therapist, Charlie,” Dean said. “And I don’t need one, anyway.”

“Uh, yeah you do,” Charlie said. “Badly. I’ll talk to you later.”

The call went dead before Dean could conjure up something to say to that. He took a deep breath. Sometimes...sometimes, Charlie was deeply exasperating. He’d said she was the little sister he’d never had, and sometimes she took that sentiment a little too far in the ‘annoying Dean’ department.

Dean drove down the ramshackle street the bar resided on until he came across a motel. Seashell themed. In the middle of Nebraska. Whatever. 

And he slept, and ate, and watched shitty daytime television, and then he was back at Porky’s. Another glass in his hand. And then he was at the motel, alone again; another woman lured in and pushed away. What was _wrong_ with him? He slept again, ate again, watched more shitty television, and was back at Porky’s. And again. And again. His phone kept buzzing, always Charlie.


	6. Chapter Six

Porky’s was starting to feel familiar. He walked in—Saturday night this time, he was pretty sure—and took his usual seat, the one with the rip down the side of the cushion. 

The bartender—Thomas—already had his drink waiting for him, and Dean picked it up with a nod as he glanced around at the other patrons in the bar. It was starting to fill up fast, much faster than it had a few days ago when there’d been max six people in the bar at any given time all night. 

And not a single woman within a remotely acceptable age range in the place was someone Dean hadn’t already tried to push himself towards and then bailed on. He raised his eyebrows and blew out a sigh. Maybe he _was_ pathetic. 

So he nursed his drink, staring down at the patterns in the wooden bartop, and listened to the drivel people kept playing on the jukebox. Tonight it was a whole lot of Taylor Swift, which he wasn’t too mad about but it just wasn’t hitting the spot. 

“Not even gonna try tonight?” 

Dean lifted his head. Thomas the bartender was leaning on the other side of the bar, one eyebrow raised at Dean. 

Dean shrugged. “I think I know when to throw in the towel,” he said. 

Thomas nodded slow. “I think maybe eight nights ago would’ve been the time to do it,” he said, almost teasingly.

“Eight? I haven’t been here eight days,” Dean said. 

“No,” Thomas laughed. “You’ve been here ten.”

Dean blinked. “Shit.”

“Time flies when you’re confusing women and drinking all my bar’s whiskey.”

“Your bar?”

Thomas shrugged. “Sort of. My dad left it to me, even though I didn’t want it. But I got stuck, you know. Here I am.”

Dean huffed and finished his drink, throwing back the dregs. “I can relate to that.”

Someone down the bar called for Thomas and he wandered off, plucking a bottle down from the shelf with a quick hand to go serve the person. Dean twisted his glass around in circles on the counter. Maybe he was going about this all wrong. If he wanted to burn every trace of...of _pining_ out of himself, maybe someone different than his usual would do. 

When the bar was starting to empty out—much later than the last few nights, close to two in the morning—Dean was biting at his bottom lip and...wondering. 

“Got any big plans after you close up?” Dean asked as Thomas came around to give his usual ‘closing time’ comment. 

Thomas’s eyebrows quirked up just a hair. 

“Depends,” he said, and Dean felt his own eyebrows raise. He looked at the bartender properly for once—at his scruffy gray henley, the heavy black apron he wore over it; the carefully tied string around the waist. The way his forearms flexed at the towel he gripped between both hands. When his eyes made their way back up to meet the bartender’s, the man’s eyes were dark and steady, like he was just watching and waiting for Dean to make up his mind.

Dean couldn’t say exactly what was different that let him get past the barstool for once. Maybe it didn’t feel as real; felt more like a strange and over-heated dream. But in the motel room, locking the door and turning, feeling the doorknob at his lower back, it felt very, very real. _Thomas_ was very, very real. 

His tongue tasted like maraschino cherries, and Dean almost smiled into the kiss, imagining the bartender popping the bright red little things into his mouth as he worked. They stumbled towards the bed, and Dean felt the bed against the back of his knees before he was falling backwards and thumping down to the bed. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed a man, but he was pretty sure it was the first time he’d been practically sober for it. Every other time had been when he was so drunk that his vision blurred at the edges and he could almost forget that it wasn’t something he usually did. He was pretty sure he’d even had sex with a guy some time in his mid twenties, but he’d been nearly blacked out, everything all hazy and hard to distinguish from a dream. And he’d woken up alone. That was before he went and pulled Sam away from his college and his dreams, before he’d been thrown into life as _the_ Dean Winchester rather than just regular Dean, fuckup from Kansas. 

And maybe it was stupid it had only been a few times, or that he’d been so drunk on liquid bravery each time. Because Thomas’s weight over him, the rough scratch of his stubble on Dean’s face, it was—it was good. He could do this. He’d gotten past the hard part, the part where he had to pretend like he was paying attention to the actual person and not just the feeling of skin on skin.

Thomas’s fingers trailed at the sliver of skin between Dean’s shirt and the top of his pants, and Dean shivered, grasping at Thomas’s arms. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re so—”

Dean jerked, Cas’s voice suddenly echoing in his head, berating the use of Jesus’s name in vain. Old Cas—the crotchety, pouting angel of the lord Dean used to know. 

Thomas hovered over him, his movements paused at Dean’s motion. Dean’s face felt hot suddenly; his breaths felt tight and too fast in his chest.

“Get off,” he gasped. Thomas immediately slipped away, kneeling just beside Dean. Dean scrambled to sit up, his knees pulling in towards his chest.

“We don’t have to…” Thomas trailed off, fidgeting uncomfortably. He leaned back stiffly. “You know, you remind me of me.”

“What?”

“You remind me of me, like ten years ago,” Thomas said. “I was thirty, trying to pretend like I wasn’t going to end up just running the bar. Trying to pretend like I wanted to marry my fiancee even though I knew I didn’t love her. It’s poison, man.”

“That’s not—I’m not—”

Thomas got up and reached for his shirt where it was crumpled on the ground. “Yeah,” he said. “I hope you figure it out some time, man. Life is short.”

Dean gaped at him. Did he have a glowing, neon sign on his head that said _I’m broken, please try and put me back on track?_ Even goddamn _demons_ used to try and tell him what was wrong with him, tell him he was empty inside or so fucked up that no one would ever love him. Was it that obvious? Were the cracks all the way through to the outside?

“You don’t have to go,” Dean muttered. Thomas raised his eyebrows. 

Dean waved vaguely at the bed. “Even if—whatever. You can sleep here.”

Thomas frowned. Frowned like he was pitying Dean. Like he was offering because he wanted the guy to stay and not because it seemed like the courteous thing to do. 

“It’s not like—”

“No, I will,” Thomas said. “Why not.”

Dean shifted, pulling at the threads at the edges of his jeans as Thomas peeled his shirt off again and slowly sat on the other side of the bed. 

“So is it...a religious thing?” Thomas asked slowly. 

“Huh?”

“You freaked out when I—I said ‘Jesus Christ.’ I’ve been down that road before; guys who had a little too much Bible thumping in their youth to ever get out of their head.”

Dean laughed, imagining a life that simple. Religion. It was funny, no matter how many times he got confirmation that it was all real; not just the whole God and angels thing but all of it, every strange little belief people had and held to fervently or dismissed as delusion or imagination...every time, it made him believe in _nothing_ a little bit more. 

“Sort of,” Dean said. “You’d be surprised.”

There was a pause. It probably was a weird thing to say, admittedly. But Dean didn’t feel like qualifying it. Maybe Thomas would assume he was in a cult or something.

“Maybe someday you’ll end up back here and you’ll tell me all about it,” Thomas murmured. He settled down on the other side of the bed, sprawled out. Carefree. It was funny, Dean used to feel like that, carefree. Or at least, close enough to carefree that everyone interpreted him that way.

Dean couldn’t get himself to move; it was like he was in a dream and frozen there, half-laid out on the bed. Maybe he’d messed up, when he was young and his eyes were lingering on the wrong types of bodies for a little too long in locker rooms and in movie theaters. Maybe if he’d just said screw his father and done what he wanted; not squashed it all down, he wouldn’t be so broken now. Then again, there were larger things hanging over him. Annoying, absent, angel-shaped things. 

Dean fell asleep still in his jeans. He realized immediately when he woke up and his whole body felt grimy and stiff in a way only sleeping in your clothes could accomplish. His phone was buzzing, and the light coming in front outside was glaringly, painfully bright. The alarm clock said it was one in the afternoon, and Dean blinked at it disbelievingly for a moment. He was pretty sure he’d knocked out around three. 

He stuffed his feet back in his shoes and stumbled out into the early afternoon light, answering the call. It was the least he could do. 

“Charlie,” he said. 

There was a long pause on the other end, like she was taking a deep breath. 

“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” she asked. “Like, for a week. Sam said you wouldn’t pick up when he called, either. I was this close to telling Sam your location and sending him out to find you.”

Dean cringed, glancing back at the motel room. That would’ve been awkward.

“Glad you didn’t,” Dean said. 

“You’ve been camped out at this bar for long enough, man,” Charlie said. “Are you ever gonna go back to the bunker? Seriously.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed. “It’s not like being out here’s got a point, anyway.”

He could practically hear the gears in Charlie’s head turning. 

“You’ll have to debrief me sometime,” Charlie said. “We’ll decide then if you need just an intervention or something more severe.”

“An intervention is the minimum?” 

“Just go back to the bunker, please,” Charlie said. “You can’t just isolate yourself and drink yourself to death in freaking Nebraska.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean muttered. 

“Okay, good!” Charlie said. “I’ll tell Sam you’re heading back to the bunker, that you’re okay.”

The call bleeped its end and Dean gritted his teeth as he dug the motel key out of his pocket. He opened the motel room door and grabbed his duffel where it was lying open next to the door. Maybe it was a good thing that he was always in the habit of never settling down when he was in this type of place, always keeping everything in a ready-to-go sort of set up. 

“Would you tell the front desk I’m gone?” Dean said gruffly, tossing the key at Thomas, who was standing mutely in the middle of the room. 

Dean left and got in his car quickly, not wanting to make eye contact with the bartender as he drove off. He used to be able to burn through people like they didn’t even matter, like they were just objects. He didn’t—he didn’t think it was a good thing, but god, maybe it would be nice to go back to that once in a while. 

He drove with some degree of a calm mind this time, actually looking where he was going properly and watching the miles slide by. But then he was in Kansas—and stopping at a diner for a while, to eat and just let the annoyance at himself marinate—and it was getting towards evening, and he was rapidly spiraling from tired and mildly frustrated to practically bursting at the seams. He was so stupid. What was he doing, sitting around with his thumb up his ass waiting for someone who pretended to love him but was perfectly happy to let him rot his life away? 

“Cas,” Dean said through gritted teeth. “I’m—I can’t stand this. I feel like an idiot, and—”

He groaned and smacked the steering wheel. “I wish I’d never—” 

He cut himself off, the words on the tip of his tongue tasting poisonous. 

If Cas didn’t want to talk to him; wanted to ignore him and act like Dean had _ever_ meant ‘leave me alone’ when he’d said as much, then fine. Dean was supposed to live his life, he could do that. He could. He wasn’t a child, wasn’t the broken little toy Thomas figured him as. 

He swung the impala into the gravel by the bunker forcefully, coming to a quick and hard stop. He clutched at the dark, furious fire burning in his chest. It was enough to keep himself going, he knew it was. He burst into the bunker, half-breathless just from keeping himself from coming apart at the seams as he barreled down the stairs. 

Dean’s feet moved faster than his brain could stutter through thoughts and frustrations and—Benny was standing there, looking at him a little curiously, and Dean grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him, a little too hard, a little too needy, a little too _everything_ , but he couldn’t—couldn’t—

“Whoa,” Benny said, pushing Dean back. “You alright?”

Something creaked in the bunker, louder than the thundering pulse in Dean’s ears, and Dean’s hand went to the gun in his waistband, lingering near the handle of the gun. The bunker made lots of noises; thumps and bangs and creaks and groans of pipes and walls shifting and a million other things. He kept his eyes on Benny; tried to feel out what the hell the feeling pulsing in him was. Was he just frustrated, or was there—could there be something? 

“God, I feel like a damn teenager,” Dean muttered. 

Benny grinned slightly, one side of his lips lifting. 

“Wanna tell me what’s lit this fire under you?” Benny asked, sounding half-amused and half-worried. 

“No,” Dean said. His fingers twitched at his side, and he dropped his hand from the gun at the small of his back.

“I don’t want you to do something you don’t really want to—”

“Fuck off,” Dean said. He forced himself to move and reached for Benny, grabbing him by his broad, heavy shoulders and pulling him back to him. He pulled with too much force, and he stumbled back, pulling Benny along with him until his back hit a wall. It was—it wasn’t quite—something wasn’t right, but something heavy and magnetic was sinking down in his chest, pulling at him, tugging, settling in.

“Uh.” 

Dean twisted, yanking away from Benny and turning towards the voice, his gun already out and pointed. At the door, up above them, standing there with his eyebrows raised and a bulging bag of fast food in his arms, was Sam.


	7. Chapter Seven

It was never very rational, Dean’s fear of Sam knowing the truth about him. The truth that sometimes he would lay in bed at night and imagine a version of himself that could be with a man without a wriggling feeling of guilt in the back of his mind. That he’d been imagining that for as long as he could remember. The fear was mostly in the way Sam’s eyes crinkled at the corners just like their father’s; the way sometimes when Sam was upset, the way he moved and the way his voice steadily raised was uncannily, exactly, undeniably like the way John acted when he was angry. 

It wasn’t rational. Dean knew that. 

But he couldn’t not feel the tight panic that was working its way out of his chest and up his neck and clutching at his jaw and cheeks, standing in the middle of the bunker staring up at his brother.

“I’ll give you two some space,” Benny said softly, moving away on quiet feet. Dean didn’t turn to look. He didn’t want to miss a flicker on his brother’s face, a warning that maybe it would be best for Dean if he tuned out, if he checked out of the situation entirely and pretended like he didn’t see or hear anything at all. Didn’t feel anything at all. 

Sam made his way down the stairs, and when he reached the bottom he held out the bulging bag of food. Dean’s hands moved robotically, taking the warm bag and clutching it to his chest. 

Sam walked straight to the big table in the bunker and sat down heavily. Dean trailed after him and sat across from him, turning the bag over to dump out wrapped burgers and boxes of fries. He shoved some of it at Sam and unwrapped one, trying to act like normal-Dean, the Dean that Sam knew, even though his hands were shaking a little. 

“So, Benny?” Sam said finally, as Dean swallowed his first bite of burger. 

Dean swallowed again, his throat dry. He reached for a glass of water abandoned on the table. He was pretty sure it was actually the same one he’d been drinking out of ages ago, the last time he’d been in the bunker overnight, but if not, he really couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Not really,” Dean said. He took another bite, staring at a lamp off to the side rather than at Sam. 

“Have you—are you…” Sam trailed off, his face looking pinched and nervous when Dean glanced at him. He looked like _he_ was the one who needed to be nervous, and something unwound slightly in Dean’s gut. 

“Spit it out,” Dean said, a ghost of a grin in his cheeks. 

“Gay?” Sam said, blinking. “Bi?” 

He’d stunned his brother into sentence fragments. Dean pushed a wad of fries into his mouth. He hadn’t really given it much thought—thought beyond panicked, angry accusations at himself over the years, anyway. 

“Dunno,” Dean said. 

Sam sighed. “Dean, I don’t know why you felt like you couldn’t tell me, but it’s okay. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s a little _surprising_ , but that doesn’t matter.”

Dean nodded. The wad in his throat was back, and he took a deeper gulp of water, almost draining the glass. Part of him wanted to say, ‘ _is_ it surprising? Were you not the one standing next to me when I acted like a damn fool because a Dr. Sexy lookalike was talking to us?’ 

“I, uh.” He took a breath. “You remember how Dad was.” 

Confusion flicked through Sam’s eyes before his face turned into one giant pout. 

“Oh, don’t make that face,” Dean groaned. “I just mean—I don’t know. I like women. I like women a lot. So why would I—why would I…”

“Be yourself?” 

“Shut up,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. He should’ve known this was how it would go with Sam. The guy was like a walking ‘keep hanging in there’ kitten poster half the time. Supportive, but in a useless, cringy sort of way.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not letting Dad’s bullshit dictate your life anymore,” Sam said. “It’d be nice to see you happy. With Benny.” 

Dean’s stomach dropped, and he set down the burger he’d been about to take a bite out of. ‘With Benny.’ 

“Yeah,” he muttered. 

“So what was the whole bender you went on about?” Sam asked, his voice lighter now, moved on entirely. Thank god. “Get in a fight?” 

“Just needed some air,” Dean said. 

Sam nodded slowly, clearly not believing Dean, like now that he knew one more thing about Dean he was now an expert on all things Dean. 

They sat around talking about nothing for a while—some old knife Sam was restoring; some bullshit political news Dean didn’t particularly want to talk about but was at least a better topic than talking about himself. Dean was starting to think that maybe Sam was planning to spend the night; reprise his role as the resident of the room down the hall, but then Sam was sighing and shrugging on his jacket and walking out the door. 

Dean sighed out a heavy breath as the door clanged shut. He hadn’t quite managed to get himself to relax the whole time they’d been sitting there, no matter how mundane the topic of their conversation had gotten. 

“You good?” 

He turned and saw Benny leaning in the doorway. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Benny nodded and looked down at the ground for a second. 

“You tell your brother about Castiel?” 

Dean blinked and took a step forward so he could lean against one of the chairs at the table. 

“What do you mean?” 

Benny crossed his arms slowly. “You’re in love with that angel of yours,” Benny said. “I don’t know why he’s not down here with you, but...I know love when I see it.” 

“I don’t—” 

“Listen, Dean,” Benny said. He took a step forward, and Dean noticed for the first time that there was a heavy-looking bag sitting on the floor behind him. “I got shit of my own to figure out. It’s harder than you’d think to get used to being really alive again after so long. Being here, pretending like I can have a life just sitting around here drinking beer and hunting monsters, it’s just a way to avoid thinkin’ about all that. Avoid doin’ something real.” 

“You’re leaving?” 

Dean couldn’t help the way it sounded like an accusation. Sounded pitiful. Lonely. 

Benny nodded. “I’ll be around. Any time you need backup on a hunt, especially. Wouldn’t want you scratchin’ that pretty face of yours.” 

Dean couldn’t get himself to do anything but stand there and watch as Benny picked up his bag and walked towards him. Benny clapped a hand to Dean’s shoulder and stood there for a moment before he gave him a nod and started towards the stairs.

“You need a ride?” Dean said, turning around.

“I’m plannin’ to go pretty far,” Benny said.

“No, I mean—we got lots of cars. You can take one,” Dean said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the enormous garage. 

Benny paused, looking at Dean with weight behind his gaze. 

“Alright,” he said finally. 

Dean watched him head for the garage. Part of him wanted to rush after him, tell him which ones were off limits, but it wasn’t like he’d ever drive them. He had the impala. They were nice cars; beautiful cars, tempting cars, cars he’d never driven but maybe would’ve liked to. But they weren’t the impala. 

Dean showered the feeling of a long drive off, letting the water burn at his skin and soaping up over and over and over again until his flesh was pink and almost tacky with the lingering feeling of the soap. He shaved, careful and slow. He changed his sheets. He sat on the end of his bed with his head in his hands.

“Cas,” he said finally, talking at the ground. “I know I told you to fuck off. But...I hope you’re listening. I assume you are, you’ve never...never ignored my prayers when I needed you to listen. Well, I guess you have, but you always thought it was for my own good.”

He swallowed, sliding his hands along his face until they were clasped at the back of his head. 

“I’ve tried, Cas,” he said hoarsely. “I know you wanted me to just live like I wasn’t waiting for something, but I can’t forget that I am. It’s all I think about. It’s all I’ve got. No matter who I find here, no matter what happens, even if someday I...get my head out of my ass and can at least get somewhere close to what you want for me...nothing’s gonna change, Cas. _Nothing’s_ gonna change. The only person...the only person that will ever...ever be something for me, is you. No one’s ever come close. I know no one will.”

He sighed. For the first time in a long time, he felt stupid to be praying. It felt like he was talking to no one. Talking to himself. 

“Even though you piss me off,” Dean said. “Even though you...left. Left me. I know it’s not gonna go away. Even if you forget to ever come back.”

As soon as Dean was asleep, he knew that Cas had decided to show his face. He was sitting on that familiar dock—on the actual dock this time, his feet in the water—and without turning, he could tell Cas was standing behind him. 

He pushed at his body until he had turned around and was kneeling, looking up at Cas, which was better at least than facing the water and not getting to see him. He had so few pictures, he wasn’t even sure if he’d fully remembered what Cas looked like. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if he could really ever forget. 

“If you...if you loved me,” Dean said, his words coming out syrupy and heavy, from deep in his chest, filtering into the dream and drifting around him and Cas like low-hanging clouds. His throat was thick; he took a deep breath to steady his voice, a breath he knew he was taking in real life, in his bed, filling his lungs. “If you love me, why did you leave? How—how did you leave so easily?”

Cas’s face crumpled, all the lines and creases of age—age that would never become deeper; would always stay the same—standing out for a moment as he looked back at Dean. It was—it was like Dean’s body was being as cracked open and obvious as he felt on the inside, broken open like an orange split by two enormous hands. He couldn’t get his body to stand up, all he could do was kneel, sitting on his heels, his head tilted up, the sun warming his exposed neck. 

“Dean, I would move heaven and earth—I _have_ moved heaven and earth to be near you,” Cas said. He reached down, his hand brushing against Dean’s cheek. Dean couldn’t help but lean into it, pressing into the soft warmth. “I can’t. We’ve bent and broken the rules before, and look where it’s gotten us in the past. I need to make sure that this time, we—”

Dean felt himself slipping, pulling away. Maybe on purpose. It was something in him cracking now. Hope, maybe, shattering apart. And he was waking up, the dream crumbling apart and slipping through his fingers. He couldn’t hold onto anything, it seemed.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide ideation

There was a hunt. There was always a hunt. He’d been waiting for one like this, one that felt like it mattered. Waiting years. It’d been long enough that Miracle was gone, even though that dog had lived to an age that the vet said was quite unusual—long enough that Dean had suspected that Jack had something to do with the dog’s longevity. It’d been long enough that Dean was resigned to his fate, to wait and wonder forever. Long enough that for a couple years there, Charlie had lived in the bunker with him, fresh off her own heartbreak after getting cheated on and getting divorced. Just two sad sacks. Until she picked herself up and got back out there and managed to fall in love again, like the first love hadn’t pulverized something in her to dust and left her useless for anyone else. Dean was happy for her. Really. 

Sometimes, when Dean couldn’t sleep, he’d pray until Cas replied. It wasn’t so often anymore, not like the years when Dean would say more to Cas and hear more in response every day than he’d say to or hear from anyone else. He had to really push now; make it crystal clear that he was praying, that he wanted to hear something, wanted to talk, wanted to know if Cas was any closer to returning. If the years that had passed had told Dean anything, it was that he only wanted one thing. 

_Hey, Cas,_ Dean thought, staring at what felt like the hundredth dusty old book. _Ever hear of a ghesting spirit?_

There was no reply. Dean often wondered if he just didn’t have the knack for praying in his mind. That is...if he didn’t have the knack for doing it on purpose. Just last week he’d been taking a long, lazy morning shower and had slipped into thoughts of Cas...and of course that had been one of the few times Cas seemed to hear Dean’s internal invocation of the angel’s name. His voice in Dean’s head, sudden and gone as soon as it had arrived—just there long enough to say Dean’s name in a confused, almost bleary voice before Dean could _hear_ the realization and the soft gasp as Cas backed off again—had made Dean’s knees give out. Not that making his knees give out was a hard thing to do anymore. 

“This is all I’ve got,” Sam said, dropping a heavy spell book to the table with a thud. Dean jumped, startled out of hazily daydreaming of showers and a grumbling voice in his ear. 

They all shifted closer to look. This one had called them all in. Two hunters had already died trying to kill the damn thing. It was something none of them had ever encountered before; an old, forgotten creature with the worst inclinations. 

“Eileen found it,” Sam said. He pointed at something written in jagged, brown ink. Probably aged blood, Dean figured. It was always blood. 

“You think it’ll work?” Jody asked, leaning even closer to try and read the tiny font. 

“Pretty sure,” Sam said. “But…” 

“But what?” Claire asked. “If it’ll work, let’s do it. If the pattern we figured out is right, there’s gonna be another family dead tomorrow night.” 

“Well, we could try telling the family we think it’s targeting,” Sam said, running a hand through his hair. It was getting thin, his hairline inching backwards steadily, and Dean brushed a hand over his own hair, which was doing pretty damn well with age. He always knew Sam would be the one to go bald. Cared too damn much about his hair. 

“And what, take them to somewhere we think is safe and just hope?” 

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. 

“What’s wrong with the spell?” Charlie asked. “There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there?” 

Sam sighed even heavier, and he tugged a sheet of paper out from between the pages of the spell book. His own writing covered the page, a mix of what looked like transcribed details and notes and suggestions of his own. 

“It’ll kill whoever casts it,” he said carefully, holding the paper in both hands. “And we don’t even know if it’ll work to kill the thing, but it will definitely kill whoever does it.”

“No,” Jody said firmly. “Not happening.”

“There are entire families dying,” Dean said. 

Or, _almost_ entire families dying. It always left one of the kids. Every single one of the kids they’d tracked down so far had been too terrified and traumatized to even talk about what had happened to them. Or, maybe, Dean couldn’t help but wonder, the thing was doing something to the children and had left them alive for a reason. Something like what had happened to Sam, way back when. 

“If we rush off with some half-cocked plan, that’s no better for the families,” Jody insisted. “We need to figure out what will actually work and get it right. The first time.”

“We’ll find something else,” Charlie said. “We always do.” 

Dean knew that tone of voice. That was the tone Charlie used when she didn’t believe in something at all, but she thought maybe if she said it with enough false hope behind it, she might be able to get everyone else to believe in an idea. 

“I’ll keep looking,” Sam said. He tucked the paper into the spell book and shut it with a sigh. “I gotta get home tonight, though.” 

Dean showed the others back to their guest quarters, even though they all knew their way around. Even if the reason for them all being here was grim, he couldn’t help but feel a bubbly lightness in him at the number of people who’d been in the bunker for almost a full week now. 

“Goodnight,” Dean said, shutting Charlie’s door behind her. Even though she’d moved out, she still had a real room of her own with some left-behind decor and trappings of comfort. Sometimes, when nobody came by for a while, Dean would go in there just to sit and try to see if he could feel her lingering presence. He never could. 

His feet carried him back down the hall, and he shuffled into the bathroom tiredly. Who were they to decide that their lives— _one_ of their lives—mattered more than entire families being slaughtered? How many were dead already? How many more would die before they found a solution they were happy with? 

He already knew what he was going to do. For all they knew, they could spend months searching for an answer and end up going with this spell anyway; end up suffering the loss they would have by then made so many selfish sacrifices to avoid in the first place. 

“It’s been almost ten years, Cas,” Dean said, bracing himself over the sink. He couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t look at himself, look at the wear of age and years alone. Couldn’t bear confirming what he already knew; that Cas wouldn’t be there in the mirror, standing over his shoulder. That even if Cas showed up now or in another decade, Dean wouldn’t have all that long left, or at least not much time without aching joints and high cholesterol haunting him. “And you—I don’t know if it was something I did, but you barely...you barely even talk to me anymore.”

Cas didn’t say anything. Dean’s fingers tightened on the porcelain. 

“Fine. That’s typical,” Dean said. “Whatever.”

He pushed himself away and walked to his bedroom. He pulled off his clothes—comfortable, simple stuff he was inclined to wear when he wasn’t even leaving the bunker for the day. He pulled on jeans, sighing at the way the button was only barely able to close. He didn’t particularly care how his body was shifting and changing in response to his home-cooked diet and the increasing infrequency of hunts, but it was a pain in the ass to go and find new clothes every few years instead of just sticking to the same stuff until holes wore through them. 

He didn’t take much. Just a couple weapons, the bare minimum. The clothes on his back; a flask full of whiskey in case he needed any...extra encouragement. The spell book. He lingered near some of the scrap papers from their research. He could write a note to the rest of them; tell them he was going to take care of it, but they’d figure it out on their own in time. He didn’t know what it was he could say anyway. 

Standing at the door of the bunker, looking back at the dim, quiet space he’d called home for so long, Dean couldn’t help but sigh, feeling a bit like Sam with the overdramatic sighing-every-two-minutes. Sometime in the last few years, the bunker had started feeling like a purgatory of its own. 

He’d expected the drive to be overwhelming. To feel like the slow walk to the execution chair. But it felt more just empty. The highways were dark and barren, and the miles ticked by like they always had; the road feeling more like home than the bunker nowadays. Like it used to. It was like he was young again, his only reliable place to return to being his car. One thing that couldn’t leave him; one thing he could always bring back to life.

The drive was long, and by the time he was in the right state and the right town, staring up at the house they’d pinpointed as the next target, it was late afternoon. He slumped down in his seat and shut his eyes. Nobody from the bunker could catch up in time, even if they realized what Dean was going to do as soon as they woke up. If they drove pedal to the metal they’d get here a couple hours after it was already done. 

Dean only dozed fitfully, waking up in starts, flashes of Hell flickering on his eyelids. He wasn’t headed there, he knew that. You didn’t have God for a sort-of step-son without at least going to heaven, right? But he was afraid nevertheless, which was actually...relieving. Sometimes, sitting in the bunker alone for the twelfth night in a row, he’d imagine what it’d be like to die out of the blue, and part of him couldn’t help but think that it wouldn’t even matter, that he wouldn’t even be upset and neither would anyone else. But the house peered down at him, looking for all the world like the house he’d spent the first few years of his life in, and his stomach was queasy and his heart was thundering in his ears.

Maybe, he thought, and immediately reached for the whiskey—maybe when he died and showed up in heaven, Cas wouldn’t even be there to greet him. Wouldn’t even care anymore, would’ve gotten tired of the idea of Dean and moved on to bigger and better things. 

He pulled the page of instructions out of the spell book in the passenger seat and his eyes drifted over it. It was pretty simple, all things considered. A little blood sacrifice and a few words before getting a hand on the monster. Straightforward, clean, easy. It didn’t say what exactly would happen to him—if he’d explode, or choke on blood, or vanish entirely. So maybe there’d be a body, maybe there wouldn’t. 

The streetlights overhead clicked on as it turned to dusk, and Dean’s stomach growled. He was too nauseous to eat, maybe because he hadn’t eaten, maybe because he knew he was going to die. 

He stepped out of the car and walked around back of the house, the words of the spell murmuring on repeat in his head. The monster would already be inside. It would drain the family one by one as the night began and wore on, leaving all of them dead by morning except one kid. If the pattern held, it would already be wherever the parents were. From watching through the windows, Dean knew they were already in their bedroom, retiring early for the night, apparently. 

He picked the lock on the back door and crept inside as he carefully cut each palm. There was no time to mess around. If the creature got him before he got it, he’d be done for, like the other hunters who’d tried to stop the thing. And it would know what they were trying to do; it would be more prepared if someone else had to try the same spell.

Dean moved slow up the stairs, already murmuring the spell. The parents’ bedroom door had a warm light spilling out from the crack at the bottom of the door. They probably didn’t even realize what was happening to them. It seemed like everyone who’d been killed just kept going about their mundane evening activities as if they weren’t being drained of life. Once the thing got its nails into its prey, they’d forget they ever saw its grotesque shadow and would sit there and take their slaughter like drugged sheep. If this worked, and if his body were to be left behind, Dean figured the family would be pretty damn confused. They’d stir awake as if they’d been dozing, even though they would be sure they’d been awake all along. A strange man would be in their bedroom, bleeding from both hands, and dead as soon as they realized he was there. Dean would almost think it was funny, if not for the fact he was the one who would be dead.

Dean opened the door as he spoke the last word of the spell and lunged forward. The thing was at the foot of the bed, its hands curled around the ankles of a husband and wife who were staring blankly at a TV at the foot of the bed. Dean’s hands clamped down on its back; the texture of the thing like smoke and water made solid. Relief and fear struck through his heart, and then everything was gone.


	9. Chapter Nine

Birds were chirping. The sun was warm across Dean’s face, and bright enough that the first thing he saw was the lurid red of his own eyelids. He let out a sigh. The grass he was lying on was the perfect texture, not scratchy or damp or slimy. 

“Dean?!”

His eyes flickered open and he stared up at the branches of a tree; thin green leaves twitching in a breeze, illuminated from behind by the bright sun that crept through gaps in the foliage to rain down on Dean. 

Hands grabbed at him, and he scrambled up, shaking the fuzzy, dreamlike feeling away. 

“Cas?” he said. “Am I dreaming? What are you—oh.” 

He was dead. Right. 

“What are you doing here?” Cas asked urgently, almost shaking Dean with the hands at his shoulders. “You’re supposed to be alive.” 

Dean laughed. 

“It isn’t _funny_ , Dean,” Cas said, shoving Dean hard enough that he stumbled back. He smacked against something hard, but the feeling of it was bright and pungent in his nerves, like cinnamon and cardamom and not like real pain. He glanced down and saw the shiny black surface of the impala holding him up. 

“What happened, Dean?” Cas said, nearly a growl. He stalked closer, looming over Dean where he was sprawled half-collapsed against the car. 

“I lasted a pretty long time, I think,” Dean said. Apparently too cavalierly, because Cas’s expression went from confused and angry to outright furious. 

“What is the matter with you?” Cas said. “You were supposed to—”

“Supposed to?” Dean laughed. “Supposed to what? Obey heaven’s orders? Go find a wife? Pop out a few kids, retire and cook steaks on a grill in a Michigan backyard?” 

“ _Dean_ —”

“No, Cas, you know what?” Dean said. He pushed himself upright and jabbed a finger in Cas’s chest. “That’s bullshit. You and I both know I was always meant to go out this way.” 

Cas’s eyes were panicky and glimmering, tears suddenly clinging to his eyelashes. “No, you weren’t, Dean,” he said. “You deserve to have a normal, happy life.” 

“So where were you?” Dean exclaimed. Cas jerked back slightly. “Where were you, then?” 

“I told you, I would return to earth once—”

“It’s been nearly ten years, Cas. Ten _years_ ,” Dean said. “You’re lucky I didn’t—”

He cut himself off. He knew what he was thinking—that if he’d been any worse off, he’d have gone into a fight a little too recklessly _years_ ago and bit the dust then. 

“It hasn’t...ten years?” Cas said, his eyes wide. “But—”

“Maybe you should’ve invested in a pocket watch, Cas,” Dean bit out. “Or, you know, listened to me when I prayed to you.” 

“I thought you wanted space, Dean,” Cas said, pressing a hand to his brow. “You _said_ you wanted space. I backed off. You didn’t want me being in your head, watching what you did, making sure you had a chance to be happy. I thought you could do it on your own if I just...gave you...space.”

“That’s why you ignored me for so long?” Dean asked. “What, decided you’d answer maybe a third of my prayers?” 

“Dean—I’m telling you I wasn’t listening as closely. You wanted me out of your head; I left. I didn’t—I thought you weren’t reaching out to me.” Cas spoke urgently, his eyes wide and fixed on Dean. “And when you—when I saw you in that dream on the dock, and you asked me how I’d left you, Dean, it was the hardest thing I could have done. I started planning how to finish my work with Jack and return to you as soon as you woke. I don’t know...I don’t know how so many years passed.” 

“You stupid son of a—” Dean pressed a hand to his forehead. 

“Regardless, Dean, you should’ve at least tried to live a normal life.” 

“I did try!” Dean said. “I did try. And you know what? Maybe I would’ve succeeded, if you hadn’t told me what you did that day. Or if I hadn’t killed you, saying it back. Or if you hadn’t promised to come back to me.” 

Cas stood there stiffly, watching Dean heave for breath. He looked exactly like he had the day he died. Unchanged. 

“And I know you like to assume that I don’t—that you don’t mean as much to me as you do, but you had to have known what you were doing to me, and I don’t—” 

He couldn’t go on, his words feeling like barbed wire in his throat. 

“Dean, I just…” 

“No,” Dean said. “I don’t...let’s stop. I don’t want to think about it. This is heaven, right? We can just pretend the last ten years never happened. We should’ve died together that day, we can pretend we did.” 

Cas’s frown deepened.

“You’re not dying,” he said. 

“What are you—I’m already dead, Cas,” Dean said. He gestured at his body. “The deed’s done.”

Cas’s brow furrowed, and suddenly things started folding away from Dean, pulling back and creasing away into shadows. 

“No! Cas!” Dean reached out, trying to hold everything to himself; the grass, the tree, the sky, _Cas_. “Cas, I just wanted—I just wanted you to _stay_.” 

But it was all gone, and he was in some sort of vacuum, a dark and empty and suffocatingly tight space that wouldn’t let him move or breath or speak. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he wasn’t designated for heaven like he’d thought. Maybe there were some sins that even Jack couldn’t overlook. 

There were voices murmuring beyond the space he was trapped in; someone was crying softly, little hitching breaths. His back was digging against something rough and uneven; his skin pressed out against something wrapped tight around him in intervals. 

His lungs were starting to burn, and he breathed in deeply, dragging in air through some sort of barrier. He shifted his head and felt his skin move against something rough, some kind of fabric. 

His hands could just move, just barely shift up from his sides and dig outwards against the cloth he was wrapped in, push it off and get a grip on it and _tear_ it away until he was pulling at the cloth over his face and a rush of fresh, woodsy air hit him.

The voices weren’t murmuring anymore; someone was yelling, someone was screaming. He couldn’t see; cloth was still wrapped over his eyes, and he pulled at it and tried to sit up, a rope digging into his stomach. 

“What the fuck,” he muttered, pulling at the rope, and suddenly hands were on him, dragging him down, and the fabric around him was gone in a series of hard tugs and pulls. 

“Dean,” someone gasped. 

“Go get water!” 

“Are you okay?!” 

“He looks different, is it really him?” 

“Dean?” 

Dean blinked, his eyes dry and sore, like he’d been staring into the sun.

Sam. 

“Sammy?” he said, his voice hoarse. “What’s going on?” 

Sam laughed incredulously, his eyes wide. He hugged him tightly, nearly knocking Dean over. “What’s going—what’s going on? We could ask you the same thing.” 

Dean stumbled, his feet still caught in shreds of fabric, and he caught himself against what felt like wood. A pyre, he realized, twisting around to see what it was he’d been dragged off. 

“You were—you were dead,” Claire said, suddenly beside Sam. Her face was tracked with tears; she stared up at him like she was afraid he might strike her. 

“I...yeah, I guess I was.” 

“Dean, you’re, uh.” Sam shook his head slowly. “You’re younger.” 

“What?”

“Younger,” Sam repeated. “Like, I don’t know, a decade or so. You look like you’re forty.” 

Dean lifted a hand and smoothed it over his cheek. He didn’t feel any different, although his knee didn’t have that horrible ache he’d started tuning out years ago. 

“Huh,” he said. His stomach turned. Cas. That bastard—did he really think that the solution to Dean’s anger was to give him the ten years back, make him relive it? Tack on an extra few years to his life span and see if Dean could figure it out this time around?

“Goddamnit,” Dean muttered, smoothing a hand down his body. His clothes were too large on him; loose and strange feeling against his skin. 

“Did Jack send you back?” Sam asked. He was crying now, too, and Dean rolled his eyes.

“I guess so,” he bit out. 

Claire still looked terrified. “Why don’t you seem happy about it?” she asked anxiously. 

“I’m just—they said they weren’t going to intervene,” Dean said. 

“Who did?” 

“Cas and Jack,” Dean said. 

“You saw them?” Sam asked, his eyebrows shooting up. “In heaven? You went to heaven, right?” 

“Well, I saw Cas,” Dean said reluctantly. 

Sam’s eyes immediately darted over to Charlie, who was standing with a hand pressed over her mouth off slightly to the side. They held each other’s gaze for a second before Sam’s eyes dropped to the ground. Dean tried to catch Charlie’s gaze with a frown, but she looked innocently up towards the night sky. 

“What took them so long giving you back?” Claire asked. Dean shot her a glance. 

“What?” he said. 

She made a face. “You’ve been dead, like, two weeks. It took forever for us to get your body back from the feds. The real ones.” 

“Two—two weeks?” Dean asked, glancing at Sam, whose pinched expression confirmed it. “I was in heaven for...maybe two minutes? Five, tops.” 

“Your corpse was disgusting, by the way,” Claire said. Dean bit his lip. Even if she was fully an adult now, with all the years that had passed, sometimes she still made comments that made it feel like she was still a snarky teenager. 

“What were you thinking?” Sam said, his voice softer. “We said we’d find another way—”

“Yeah, what? After another ten families died?” Dean asked. 

Charlie shifted awkwardly. “We found another way to kill it last week,” she said. “We kept researching, just in case anything had gone wrong with…you know, your whole suicide mission.” 

Dean took a deep breath. He could tell them that it didn’t matter—there was no reason why his life should count more than the four lives he’d saved in that family; five lives, really, since the kid left to survive wouldn’t really ever have a normal life. He could ask more questions, but the last thing he wanted to admit was that part of him had needed to know what waited for him after earth; needed to know if he would ever have something more than an empty bed and an occasional visitor. “I need a drink.” 

The others were drifting closer again. Jody was holding a glass of water, which she held out to Dean and he gratefully drained and handed back. Something to do other than look at the dozen weepy folks clustered around him. Although when he said he needed a drink, he’d had something stronger than water in mind.

“Let’s do this inside,” Dean said. “I don’t think standing at the damn funeral pyre is the best place to catch up.” 

He led the way to the bunker; the door hanging open from Jody’s trip inside to get water. Another ten years pinned onto his life. If he didn’t die again barreling into a hunt head-first. Who was Cas to say how many years Dean was required to live before he was allowed to die? He could die any time. He could trip walking down the bunker stairs and—

Dean froze, halfway down the stairs. In the middle of the bunker, standing there like nothing had ever changed, trenchcoat and all, was Cas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing that pissed me off about the finale maybe most of all was Dean dying. Dean gets to live to be old and curmudgeonly on a beach!!! Non-negotiable!!!


	10. Chapter Ten

“Cas?” Dean said. His feet felt like they weighed a hundred pounds. He took one heavy step down the stairs, one step closer. 

Maybe he’d lost it and was imagining shit again. 

“Dean,” Cas said simply, looking up at him with an open, unguarded expression. Dean wasn’t sure if he wanted to punch him or run in the other direction. 

“What are you doing here?” Dean said slowly. 

“Cas?” Sam asked, frozen at the door of the bunker. 

Cas lifted his head momentarily to Sam before his gaze went straight back to Dean’s. 

“Field trip?” Dean said. He managed another step; his hand tight on the railing. “Come to make sure I don’t get myself killed?”

“I’m...human,” Cas said. He raised his arms slightly, gesturing at himself. “I, uh. I realized that Jack can probably handle things on his own.” 

Dean took another step, making it to the floor. Human? His mind raced, a thousand different thoughts bottlenecking together.

“You’re...here to stay?” Dean said slowly, his tongue heavy and slow in his mouth. 

Cas nodded. “I told Jack he has to visit often and update me on what he’s doing, to make sure he’s not ‘losing one of his marbles,’ as you might say.” Cas’s fingers quirked through air-quotes, and Dean's breath caught in his throat. “And I know it doesn’t count for much, after leaving for so long, but…”

“You’re, uh...this is...this is real?” Dean said. 

Cas just shrugged, his eyes wide and worried. 

It was like weights slipped from Dean’s shoulders; ropes untwined from his heels. He stumbled forward, reaching for Cas with hands whose course felt as familiar as breathing. He clutched at Cas’s coat, breathing heavily. 

“I know you might—you might hate me,” Cas said.

“No,” Dean said. “No. You always assume I don’t—I don’t care. But I do. You said you couldn’t have me, but you can. You can.” 

Dean pressed a kiss to the corner of Cas’s mouth. “You can have me,” he said, barely more than a whisper. He kissed him again; their mouths fitting against each other softly; simply. Cas’s hands finally moved, reaching around Dean to hold him tighter; hold him like nothing in the world could make him let go. Not again. 

Cas pulled back slightly, and Dean felt himself lean forward, chasing after him for the hundredth time. His eyes snapped open, a flash of worry striking through him just at the feeling of Cas tugging away. 

“I can stay here?” Cas asked slowly. 

_If he leaves,_ Dean thought, _I’ll hunt him to the ends of heaven and hell._

“Obviously,” Dean said breathlessly, instead of resorting to threats, and kissed him again. How was it that his lips were chapped when he was straight off a ten year stint in heaven? Dean felt like he had something tearing inside him, built-up longing pulling outwards and away from him. And he was angry. So, so angry, an anger he hadn’t felt in years; burning, hot, clawing anger, but the pull was stronger; laced with fear and regret. They could’ve had this ten years ago, before that anger settled in, before he had to stare into the face of the dark side of loving someone with so much of yourself. He could feel his fingers gripping tighter, almost punishingly tight on Cas's arms. 

There were other footsteps up at the door, and Dean leaned away, his heart thundering in his chest. It felt like ripping a part of himself just to look away from Cas and up towards the door. Sam was facing away, talking to people in the doorway, and Dean couldn’t help but smile at the idea of his little brother trying to protect Dean’s privacy. Or, actually, he wasn’t so much his little brother anymore, now that Dean was newly young, just barely past forty, and Sam was freakin' balding. 

Dean cleared his throat and grasped blindly at Cas, grabbing hold of his coat. Sam looked over his shoulder a little nervously, like he was worried there would be some public indecency happening down on the bunker floor. 

“Cas is back,” Dean said. He could tell he was grinning like an idiot; wide and beaming and giddy, but he couldn’t seem to stop. 

Charlie appeared behind Sam, and the two of them stared down at Dean and Cas for a long moment. Then, moving quickly, Charlie walked down the stairs and Sam followed her. 

"Hello, Charlie, Sam," Cas said warmly as they approached. 

Before Cas could say anything else, Sam stepped closer. Dean's hand dropped from Cas's coat, letting Cas step towards Sam with his arms raised. 

Then Sam took a deep breath and his frown deepened slightly, and he punched Cas in the face with a guttural crunch. 

“What the hell!” Dean exclaimed, lunging out to grab at Cas, who stumbled back from the impact, nearly falling. 

“You’re an asshole, Cas,” Sam said. 

“Sam!” Charlie hissed, tugging at Sam’s arm. “I told you not to—” 

“You can’t just show up after ten years and act like you didn’t do anything wrong!” Sam exclaimed, shaking out his hand. “And—talking in his ear and stringing him along.” 

“Charlie,” Dean said warningly. He adjusted his arms around Cas, who had one hand gripped to his cheek. “You didn’t…” 

“Of course I told him, Dean!” Charlie cried. “He’s your brother, and you’ve been a mess for the last ten years.” 

“Longer than _that,_ ” Jody said from her perch on the stairs. Dean shot a glare up at her, but she already looked chagrined, like she hadn’t meant to speak out loud at all. There was a whole damn peanut gallery up there. Jody cringed and turned towards the others, saying something quiet that made them all slowly trudge back up and out of the bunker. 

Dean tugged Cas towards the nearest table and sat him at it before retrieving a frozen bag of mystery leftovers from the freezer for his cheek. Cas held it to his face miserably, his eyes flicking up to where Sam and Charlie stood. 

“I—the metaphysics of existence were damaged badly in the aftermath of Jack’s ascension,” Cas said. Sam shifted, crossing his arms, and Cas winced. “It’s not an excuse, it’s just...time passed very quickly. I thought it had been two, maybe three years, and I...I told Jack that we needed to find another way for me to help.” 

“Two or three—but wasn’t Dean praying to you?” Charlie asked. She leaned over a chair, bracing her arms on the back of it. 

Dean crossed his own arms, shifting his weight between his feet. All the times he’d idly imagined Cas returning to earth, he’d never pictured the reunion being taken up by an interrogation and an airing of all his dirty laundry. 

“I was under the impression that Dean didn’t want me listening anymore,” Cas said, and Dean winced. Charlie’s stare turned slowly onto Dean; giving for all the world the impression of a horror movie monster’s head spinning on its axis. 

“And _my_ prayers?” Sam asked indignantly. “I’ve been telling you for years what you were doing to Dean.”

Cas fidgeted and glanced up at Dean, catching his eye over his shoulder. 

“Sam, you and I have never had the exact sort of bond that Dean and I share,” Cas said slowly. “I didn’t realize you’d been praying.”

Sam threw up his hands and muttered something. Dean was pretty sure it was something along the lines of ‘fucking profound bond.’

“Regardless,” Charlie said. “You can’t just drop the L-bomb and vanish into another dimension, never to be heard from again. That’s just bad etiquette.” 

“Hey, tacking ten years onto my life is a hell of an apology, though,” Dean said. 

“It doesn’t undo the fact that he left you here to throw a decade-long pity party,” Charlie said, crossing her arms. Sam leaned against a bookshelf, staring Cas down like he expected him to sprout wings and fly off if he looked away for too long. 

“As much as I appreciate this whole—” Dean waved his hands indistinctly. “Whole...protective parent routine, I’m the one who gets to be mad, not you. And I am. And I also think I get to decide for myself whether or not I forgive Cas.” 

Sam nodded. 

“Which I do,” Dean said, and Sam redirected his flat stare onto his brother. 

Sam sighed and pushed away from the shelf he was leaning on and came around the table to where Cas was sitting. He set a hand on Cas’s shoulder and grimaced. 

“Welcome back, Cas,” he said. “I haven’t forgiven you yet, even if Dean has, but I’m glad you’re back.”

Cas lifted his head to look at him. “I think that’s fair,” he said. 

“You’re not gonna leave again, are you?” Sam asked. 

“He’s human,” Dean blurted, the knowledge still burning warm and soft in his chest. Sam nodded slowly, making a ‘well, okay’ sort of face, lips downturned. 

“Well, uh, anyone want a beer?” Dean asked. “And I’m going to tell the others they don’t need to hide outside, unless you want to get any punches in first, Charlie?” 

Charlie shrugged, which was a little ominous. 

By the time Dean had retrieved a few beers, after telling Jody that there seemed to be no more brawls going down inside, everyone was crowded around the table talking. It didn’t feel all that different from the night that Dean had left the bunker, although there was a bit of a manic mood in the air. Probably something about going from a funeral to a miraculous rebirth to a reunion all in one night. 

He took a deep breath before pushing through the group and passing a beer to Sam and a new bag of frozen food to Cas, taking the original one to put back in the freezer. People kept patting Dean's shoulder, like they wanted to make sure he was real and not a group hallucination. 

He stayed on the fringes as everyone talked. It didn’t feel real. It felt like something he might have wistfully imagined years ago. Now, it felt like something out of place in his life, like a puzzle piece that was being forced into the wrong spot, even if it was a puzzle piece he’d been searching for for so long. 

“You okay?” Charlie asked, sidling up beside him. 

Dean shrugged. “It’s weird,” he said. 

“You can say that again,” she said. “You look like a child.” 

“I do not.” 

Charlie just smiled and knocked the neck of her beer against Dean’s. He rolled his eyes. 

“We’re not going to be able to just forget the last ten years,” Charlie said. Dean shot her a glance, and she shrugged. “It’s been hard, watching you try and fail to move on. Sam and I—”

“Oh, god,” Dean muttered. 

“I had to tell him, Dean!” Charlie said. “He noticed something was weird on his own, anyway, it’s not like you were subtle, always drifting off into corners to talk to yourself for a few years there.” 

“Whatever,” Dean said. “Just please tell me you didn’t tell him _everything_ I’ve told you.” 

Charlie laughed. “No, I’ve kept certain details to myself,” she said. 

They both stared out at everyone mingling for a moment before Charlie took a deep breath. 

“Are you really okay?” she asked. 

“I’ve done it before,” Dean said. Charlie shook her head questioningly. “I mean, I was in hell for forty years. Came out, barely any time had passed. I felt like I should be an old man, but I was still young. Had to try and forget what I’d felt for forty years and act like I was the same person.” 

“And you think that’s what you should do this time?” Charlie asked skeptically. 

Dean spotted Cas in the crowd and watched as he bashfully let Garth spin him by one hand in a small circle. As Garth released him and turned to dance with his wife instead, Cas continued on his path and landed in front of Sam’s little family, Eileen and Josie, and he crouched slightly and offered his hand to the girl. She wasn’t the infant Dean still imagined her as; she was nearly ready to start middle school. Cas shook her little hand, and even from across the room, Dean could hear the low rumble of his voice as he introduced himself. 

“No,” Dean said finally. “ I think I’m a better person now than ten years ago. There are a lot of good things that happened in the last ten years. I don’t want to forget any of it. Even without Cas, it was a good ten years.” 

“Just lonely sometimes?” Charlie supplied, and Dean nodded. 

As people started to splinter off to go to sleep or drive home, Dean began plucking up abandoned bottles and glasses to take to the sink—the longer he lived, the more he began to accept that he was a bit of a control freak when it came to the bunker’s clutter. He almost wanted to throw one of the glass bottles, just to feel something break and take a breath. It was too much to happen in what felt like one day—die, find out Cas didn’t abandon him on purpose, come back to life, see everyone, get Cas back for real. And he felt like he had a tenuous hold on a fire inside him, a fire that was both fury and longing, the two emotions increasingly inseparable. 

He set the bottles down in the sink without throwing any of them and shook his head slightly. He wasn’t sure how he’d manage to sleep, with the adrenaline coursing in him. His hands were still shaking slightly, his body nowadays unused to so many stimuli. 

When Dean emerged back into the main room, everyone was gone. He walked down towards the bedrooms, glanced into his own empty bedroom, and heard the murmur of voices from Sam’s old room. 

“Hey,” Dean said, knocking at the threshold softly. Sam glanced up from where he stood at the foot of the bed, and stepped closer when he saw Dean. 

“Figured we’d crash here,” Sam said. “Josie fell asleep.”

Dean nodded, leaning slightly to see Josie tucked into the center of the large bed, her dark curls flooding the pillow under her head. Eileen sat at the side of the bed, rubbing lotion into her hands and watching Dean with calm, curious eyes. 

“You seen Cas?” Dean asked. 

Sam frowned. “No, not for a while,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Eileen, who shook her head. Dean’s fingers tightened where his hand gripped the door frame, and Sam shrugged, the gesture a little too forced. “He’s probably just in the bathroom or something. Trying to remember how to floss.” 

“Sure,” Dean said. Flossing. 

He forced himself to walk slowly as he made his way through the bunker, systematically peering into every room he passed. His stomach was starting to curl into knots; he took deep breaths through his nose, trying not to think too much. 

“Cas?” he said, walking down yet another hallway. “Cas?!” 

The bunker, which never quite seemed to be silent, had a quiet hum to it that was like a roar in Dean’s ears, a mocking, empty sound buzzing in his head. His footsteps echoed against the tiled hallway, his footfalls slowly growing faster. 

He threw open a storage room door and was already jerking away to keep moving when a flash of beige caught his eye. 

“Cas?” he gasped. 

Cas turned slowly, a mild, confused expression on his face at the urgency in Dean’s voice. 

“I thought you—” Dean cut himself off as he walked into the room and up to Cas where he stood facing a blank wall. Thought he left. Thought Cas had decided to piss off to heaven again; leave Dean again. 

Cas frowned and turned to fully face Dean. “Left?” he said. 

Dean shrugged. “Just wanted to see if you were...tired.” 

Cas took a step closer, and Dean felt his heart in his throat. For all the time that it had been since they’d first met—face to face, anyway—in that barn, sometimes it felt like they were still there, standing toe to toe, staring each other down. Cas’s eyes sometimes had that same cold burn to them, the inescapable feeling of being seen past the walls other people couldn’t see past. 

“You didn’t deserve what I did to you,” Cas said. “I won’t leave again, Dean.” 

“Even if I tell you to go?” Dean asked. He’d shoved his hands into his pockets, the sudden relief at seeing that Cas was still in the bunker turning his nerves fuzzy and leaving his hands shaking again. 

Cas smiled slightly, drawing Dean’s eyes down to his lips and back up. 

“I’ll stay,” he said. 

“I—I don’t trust you,” Dean said, the words heavy as they tripped off his tongue. “And I’m—I’m angry. Really, really angry.”

“I know,” Cas said, nodding as he shifted slightly closer. 

Dean tore his eyes away so he could breathe properly; his eyes lingered on the wall behind Cas. 

“This is—this is where you left,” Dean said, recognizing the room. “That’s where it—where it came for you.”

Cas glanced over his shoulder at the wall. “It is,” he said. “I don’t know why...I needed to see that it was just a room, just a wall.” 

“That was your true happiness,” Dean said. “Leaving.” 

“The happiness was from finally telling you that you deserve love,” Cas said firmly. He stepped forward so assuredly that Dean stumbled back slightly. “And telling you that you have mine. And from realizing that you love me too, even with everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve done to you.” 

“I know,” Dean muttered. He could feel his face warming; Cas’s steady gaze leaving him squirming inside, feeling like a bug under a microscope. 

“Dean,” Cas said. Dean realized he’d backed up far enough that his back was against some sort of shelving, and Cas was still right in front of him; his body casting warmth against Dean’s front. “Leaving you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Every time.” 

“I’m sorry I’ve told you to leave so many times,” Dean said. “Pushed you away.” 

“I’m sorry I let you,” Cas said. 

There was a soft knock at the door to the room, and Dean took a deep breath; his lungs burning suddenly. His whole body felt like he’d been trying to keep as still as possible without even realizing it. 

“Sorry,” Sam said, standing in the doorway. “Just—is everything OK?” 

“Everything’s fine,” Cas said easily. Sam lingered, and Dean sighed.

“Go to bed, Sam,” he said. 

“You know, I’m sort of the older brother now,” Sam said. “Maybe _you_ should go to bed.” 

Dean’s eyes flicked to Cas’s before he could think. 

“We will,” Cas said, and Sam let out a choked laugh at the 'we' before going back down the hallway, his footsteps thumping loudly. 

“You'll stay with me tonight, right?” Dean asked. 

Cas frowned and took a slight step back. “I already said—”

“I mean, _with me,_ ” Dean said. Cas blinked, and Dean shook his head with a grin. 

“You know,” he said, “sometimes it’s like you’re still Castiel.” 

“I _am_ Castiel,” Cas said dryly. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said. He paused, glancing down at Cas’s hand before grabbing it and tugging him along as he walked out of the storage room. “You know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t—”

Dean stopped in the hall, turning to Cas and taking his face with both hands, kissing the confusion right off his face. Dean couldn't help the lingering fear in his heart, that this wasn't real, that he didn't deserve this, that Cas would leave, that something would go wrong...but a splinter of hope was starting to work its way into the cracks. Maybe, he thought, they'd be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only sort of an ending. I plan to add a little sequel fic with more fluffy now-that-Cas-is-back content (what's that guy Thomas up to?? When does Dean get to go to a beach??), but it seemed like tone-wise it should be separate from this (which very much accidentally ended up being angsty). 
> 
> This was a tough fic to write sometimes since it's so focused on Dean's love and vulnerability and he bottles that up so much usually but kind of has to let it out more in order for this story to even begin, at the "and I you." But I hope some of you enjoyed it and that the lingering effects of Cas's accidental 10-year absence rings true (my personal favorite being Sam whacking him in the face; something about Sam finally protecting Dean after so many years of Dean protecting Sam just makes me soft, even if it means Cas getting knocked around). 
> 
> Thanks for all your comments; it's really been a joy to see people's reactions and feel a little more connected to other post-finale grievers and in general feel more connected to new people during covid. Hope everyone's staying safe, and if anyone else has fled back to tumblr since the finale fiasco, I'm @sgtjmsbrns on there.


End file.
